Hanburger
by oRpheusB20
Summary: Shovel and Shield: two children sent to a new town where the go-to descriptor word is weird. It is only their second day when they are dragged by a classmate into another world where people revive after death and where fighting is commonplace. Suddenly living in the middle of nowhere is far more interesting than it should be. (Let's be real here, Hanburger is the official name now)
1. The New Children

**I don't know why I'm uploading this. I guess I just don't want all 8,700+ words of this to go to waste, especially after dragging multiple people into my naming issues. I started this more out of boredom than anything and fuck did it grow. Trust me, though, it's more interesting than 'characters that are now inexplicably children go to school.' More info at the end, so those who don't get through it doesn't have to wade through my bolded A/N.**

 **I'm still flying by the seat of my pants here, I'll admit, but I am being much more thorough with planning this time, so if you are familiar with my writing, trust me, it's much better than my other stories on the SK list, I'd have to say. Queen Propeller's more funny, though.**

* * *

Shovel and Shield stared at their new classmates with worry. One person had her head down and was seemingly fast asleep. Another was gazing out the window, seemingly staring at a nearby bird flying in circles in the air. Yet another was fixated on a book, at least giving off the impression that he was researching for another class, of which appeared to be a science class, completely blocking out what the teacher was saying. Others were simply _there_ , not doing anything in particular, and all had bored and borderline vacant expression on their faces.

The teacher sighed as she glanced at the two. "I'm so sorry, you guys."

"Don't worry, we're not bothered," Shield told her. "We weren't expecting a parade."

"I know," the woman replied. "They could at least look at you, though." She suddenly switched gears and snapped, "Plague, stop doing your physics work; this is not the class for that!"

"It's not homework," the boy who had been reading the science book said, glancing upwards. "Besides, this isn't physics. I don't have that class. It's chemistry. You're mixing me up with Tinker."

"I like machines," a short student said, his tone and crossed arms indicating he was somewhat indignant despite his face remaining almost frighteningly impassive. "Doesn't mean I like physics, nor would I sit around studying it while I'm in another class, Plague."

"Do I look like I care?" The teacher questioned, an annoyed expression on her face. "Oh, and since I'm already on your case, stop doing Mona's work for her, would you? One more time and I'll have you taken out of this period. I don't care how full the other class is."

The student whose head was down left out an annoyed groan.

"I write whatever she tells me to; I don't just do it for her," Plague replied as he gently pat the head of the half asleep girl beside him. "She's just too lazy to write it all down, and frankly I don't blame her; you make us write a lot in here."

"I do not!" The teacher argued childishly.

"Would it kill you to quit bickering?" A boy dressed in black questioned with a cold glare, crossing his arms.

"Black, be nice," the guy who was still staring absently out the window muttered.

"I just want to get my work out of the way as quick as possible," Black replied.

"As you always do," Tinker said.

"Seriously, you need to learn to take a chill pill, Black," Plague piped up with a small, amused laugh.

"Oh, you're one to talk," Black snarled. "You're the one who can't stand in front of the class for 2 minutes without bursting into tears."

"S-shut up!" Plague yelled indignantly.

"Plague, don't let him drag you down," the girl who had previously not bothered to so much as lift her head muttered as she finally glanced up from the arms she had been using as a pillow.

"But Mona…" Plague protested quietly.

"No buts. You're better than that," Mona replied softly but sternly. She rather lazily put her hand on his shoulder.

"Alright, Mona," Plague said with a small, almost embarrassed nod.

"I cannot believe that you buy that crap," Black snarled.

Mona glared at him. "Do you want me to kick your ass?"

"Could you even pull yourself from that chair to do so?" Black mocked.

"If you continue to annoy me, yes, I will," Mona hissed.

Shovel frowned as he listened to the bickering. "I feel like we're out of place."

"Haha, that'll happen," Shield giggled.

"It's probably better for you to be out of place," the teacher informed them. "I would hate for you to be tainted by the chaos of this class."

"Half of our time in this room is over and we haven't even managed proper introductions," Tinker yawned as he attempted to block out the nearby arguing.

The teacher sighed. "I can never keep them under control."

"You don't have any tactic?" Shovel asked, somewhat befuddled.

"Is this your first or your second year of teaching?" Shield joked.

"It's my fifth, and what works seems to change every year," the teacher groaned.

"Have you tried moving them away from each other?" Shovel suggested. "Plague can't do Mona's work inside of class if he's not right beside her; I think Black would benefit from being either in the front or the back, not the middle where you have him now, and," he pointed to the guy who was still staring out the window, "you need to move that guy away from the window. He has not looked away from… I think that's a bird since the moment we walked in here."

The teacher stared at the current seating arrangement critically. "Gods, you are right," she groaned. Raising her voice, she called out, "Alright, new seats!"

This got the attention of the people, as they all stared at her silently.

"Plague, you are to trade places with Halberd! Propeller, you're moving with Sword, and Black, take the back vacant seat."

Everyone who was ordered begrudgingly did so.

The teacher gazed at the new arrangement for a moment before deciding, "Actually, Mona, you take Plague's spot. Halberd, you might as well move over to where Mona was. There's no point in confusing Plague next class."

Mona groaned, but did as ordered. Plague, however, felt the need to question this. "Why?" He asked.

"Because she's closer to me, which allows me to wake her up when she falls asleep," the teacher answered, to which Mona huffed in annoyance.

"Ha! Finally getting what you deserve!" Black laughed.

"I am out of my chair right now; do not give me reason to go over there and beat you up!" Mona snarled threateningly, turning to glare at him.

"I'm not scared of you," Black informed her uncaringly.

"I would be, if I were you," Plague said, looking as though he were recalling a suppressed memory.

"Black, I thought you wanted to get your work for the day," Tinker said. "Doesn't that take priority over antagonizing your classmates?"

"Oh, what's she going to do, suplex me?" Black mocked.

"Black, don't give her ideas," the boy who had been looking out the window suggested.

"She isn't strong enough to hurt me!" Black laughed.

"And you know that how?" Plague questioned. "I have seen her do some impressive things when she's angry."

Shovel frowned. "You know, I honestly thought that would work. I think it may have just made things worse."

Shield laughed. "Wow, this is bad. I think you just need to move Mona to another class. Black seems to annoy her more than anyone else, and she does have that partnership with Plague you also have to worry about."

Mona paused in her bickering, mouth open for a retort. Slowly, she rotated her head to look at the new students, her face contorting in a scowl.

The teacher stepped forward, barring her from approaching the two if she dared to try. "Calm, Mona, you won't get moved! I've tried that when I found out you people were all going to be together nearly a month ago; the other class is even fuller than this one, and no one can be moved. To your seat, now!"

Mona huffed but did as demanded. Plague stared at her with a worried gaze. He couldn't do anything, though, and so just gave her a light pat on the back before returning to his seat.

For the first time in several long minutes, there was complete silence. The teacher sighed and said, "Shovel, can you go sit by Axe?" Shovel nodded and did as requested. After a moment of thought, she decided, "Shield, I'm slightly hesitant to do this, but it's the only other open seat without moving more people." Shield didn't wait for her to continue and just made her way to her new seat, which was by Mona, who had already placed her head back in her arms, but was glaring at the other female as she took her seat.

"I'm sorry," Shield apologized softly. "I just wanted some order to the chaos."

Mona sighed. "Yeah, it's pretty bad. I usually keep to myself; I just let Black get to me."

Shield cocked her head to the side. "Does he always do that?"

Mona nodded slightly. "Yeah. He loves either bothering people or just getting his work done. I swear he doesn't know what fun is."

"I think bothering people is his fun," Shield said.

Mona smiled. "Ah, probably."

Unknown to the two of them, they were being watched by the teacher as she went about making sure she had everything. Normally, she would have snapped at them by this point for all the time wasting they had done, and the current chatter was not helping, but it was good to see one of the new kids get along with someone, especially the most asocial of all her students. Thus, she allowed it until she started her lesson.

* * *

A minute before the bell rang for the end of the period, Shovel felt a tap on his shoulder. Confused, he glanced behind him. It was the boy who had been looking out the window before. "Uh, hi," he greeted.

"Morning!" The student said happily. "Have you gotten the tour of the place yet?"

Somewhat surprised anyone would even offer, Shovel replied, "Uh, no, not really. We actually got lost trying to find the room, as embarrassing as that is."

The boy laughed. "Well, then at lunch, meet me outside this room, and I'll show you and your girlfriend around!"

"She's not my girlfriend," Shovel informed the boy. "But, regardless, thank you. Uh, we never actually did get through the introductions, did we? I'm Shovel, in case you missed it."

The boy smiled and nodded, holding out his hand, which Shovel shook. "Nice to meet you, Shovel. I'm Propeller! I'm actually a grade above you; I just failed this class because I was stressing about other classes that I ended up neglecting this one. Haha! Wow, was Magicist pissed about that!"

Shovel frowned. "Who's Magicist?"

"Oh, that's what everyone calls the teacher," Propeller informed him, pointing to said woman.

Shovel was silent for a moment before asking, "Why do you do that?"

Propeller shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure myself. I think someone called her that in her first year, and it just kinda stuck. Something or other about how she got excited over the idea of magic."

"Huh," was Shovel's confused reply. "Well, okay then. Ironically, I think that's the most I've learned thus far today."

Propeller smiled. "Happy to be of service!"

There was a shrill ringing sound signaling the end of the period. As they made their way out of the class, Shovel asked as he glanced down at his new schedule, "Hey, where's the… uh, accounting? How did I get into accounting?"

"At least it's not Horticulture," Shield said as she approached, looking at her own schedule with dread.

"It's not that bad," Mona commented as she passed them with Plague. "If you can get past the initial semester, of course, since you can't get into the greenhouse otherwise. Natural Resources, now _that's_ a bore."

"I thought you said Floral Design was the worst?" Plague questioned.

"Yeah, but at least you do something in there, since, you know, I'm not allowed to sleep around Estoc anyway, the obnoxious pet," Mona replied, her voice gradually fading out as they got swallowed up by the cluster of students running for their next classes.

"Accounting's over there," Propeller said, seemingly unperturbed by the random interruption as he pointed to the right. "Tinker's in there too. Follow him and you'll be golden. Isn't too hard to find, though, the teacher always stands outside the door."

Shovel nodded and started his trip as Propeller pointed Shield in the direction of her next class.

* * *

Shovel yawned as he walked out the door, waving a goodbye to the teacher as he did so. He noticed Tinker was gazing critically at his advanced accounting paper as he walked along, muttering about how the numbers weren't adding up correctly. 'Nut,' was Shovel's only thought on the matter as he returned to the initial room, finding Propeller was there waiting for him.

"Do you know if Shield has this lunch?" The older male asked.

"There are different lunches?" Shovel questioned, feeling somewhat dumb.

Propeller shrugged. "Yeah, we don't have that many kids here, but enough to need two separate lunches so we don't all crowd the place. You saw passing time, right? Uh, let me look at your schedule." Shovel handed the paper over and Propeller gazed at it for a second. "Yeah, you got this lunch."

"Hey guys!" Shield yelled as she appeared.

"Yo, you got this lunch?" Shovel asked.

"Not a clue!" Shield replied happily. "I didn't even know there were two different lunches!"

"Neither did I, up top!" Shovel yelled, holding up his hand, which was promptly slapped in the manner requested.

Propeller laughed at the interaction. While she was distracted, he reached forward and took Shield's schedule. He frowned. "You have next lunch."

Shield glanced at him and deflated. "Aww," she sighed. "Fine, where's history?"

"I'll show you, come." Propeller started walking, with the two new kids walking closely behind him. "Don't be too down, though. Tomorrow you have the same lunch as me, and I think I saw Shovel has bio third period."

"Meaning…?" Shield asked, already lost. "And what do you mean tomorrow?"

"This place runs on a Day One and Day Two system, remember?" Shovel reminded her.

"Yeah, and your third period dictates if you have lunch one or two," Propeller added. "Tomorrow you have math third, and Shovel has bio, both of which have lunch one."

Shield nodded in understanding as they came to a stop.

"Here you are, my dear," Propeller said, gesturing to the nearest classroom.

"Please don't call me that," Shield requested as she walked inside, waving to them a short moment later.

"Alright, onwards to the tour!" Propeller said happily as he watched Shovel start munching on a granola bar he got from seemingly nowhere. "I'll focus mostly on what to watch out for. First… school lunches. Honestly, they shouldn't be considered food. Or safe enough for human consumption for that matter."

"That's why I have this," Shovel said as he held up the bar he was eating. "I may not have a lot of money, but when I have any, it generally goes towards something to replace those."

"Right, good," Propeller nodded approvingly. "Smart kid. Okay, so now. First off… watch out for Treasure."

"You guys have treasure here?" Shovel questioned.

"No, that's his name," Propeller corrected. "Although I wish we had enough treasure just lying about that we could tell anyone who comes to keep an eye out for anything that might be shiny. Anyway, he will fuck you up. Like, no questions asked. Just for making eye contact. Luckily, he's never in school. But still. Do not fuck with him. Under any circumstance. You piss him off, run like hell and do not look back. He's slow, so that shouldn't be too hard."

Shovel nodded as he thought about this. "Right, okay, stay the fuck away from Treasure, got it. Anyone else I should fear?"

Propeller thought for a second and suggested, "I would try to stay away from King if I were you. His family believes they're royalty, and are kind of assholes that all have a couple screws loose. I mean, King, really? Who names their child that?"

"You're asking someone named Shovel," Shovel reminded him. "While you're named Propeller. I don't think we have much right to make fun of him."

Propeller snickered. "Oh, right! Ah, anyway, moving on, now. Another thing to look out for is the spook brothers." He pointed toward a person red hoodie with the hood up as he walked past. "There's one now. Most of them are pretty much completely identical with what they wear."

Shovel stared at the boy as he passed them. "Yeah, now that you mention them, I noticed one in accounting. I thought that he was just an introvert. Now I want to know which one it was."

Propeller shrugged. "Wait for the teacher to call him out, and then try to memorize how he acts. Until you learn their speech patterns and small quirks, it's best not to refer to them by name, lest you make yourself look like a fool. The only ones you can tell right off the bat are Chibi and Banana, and if you're close enough, Living."

Shovel snorted. "Living? What are the rest of them, vampires?"

"Actually, that's Wimpy," Propeller replied.

A confused look spread onto Shovel's face, accompanied by a befuddled grunt.

Propeller laughed. "You'll figure out what I mean eventually."

"I should hope so, for the sake of my sanity," Shovel said. "Anyone else?"

"But of course! In fact, there he is!" Propeller pointed towards a large boy in red.

"Him?" Shovel questioned. "What about him?"

Propeller waved to the guy as they passed by him. "That's Mole, the sweetest guy in the school. And the only one that could potentially stand up to Treasure in a fight, mostly because of his size. Like I said, though, he's sweet, so he wouldn't do that unless he's protecting someone that's in major shit with the guy."

"Right, now I know who to run to when I tick someone off," Shovel commented.

Propeller grinned. "Don't rely on him too much. You never know when he's going to realize what he has and starts charging!"

Shovel nodded. "That would not be pleasant."

The rest of the lunch period was rather uneventful, as Propeller could not come up with anyone else to talk about, and so he went on about the school. Sadly, however, despite its age, the school was beyond boring as shit, and it was almost a relief when the end of their lunch came.

"Wish me luck in math," Shovel said as he left the older boy's company.

"Good luck, bud," Propeller said as he waved a goodbye.

* * *

"Shovel!" Shield yelled, suddenly appearing and crushing said boy in a hug.

"Shield?" Shovel questioned. "You have Lang & Lit now?"

"That I do!" She grinned.

Shovel let out a sigh of relief. "Good, I'm not alone! Especially with this nutcase of a teacher." He glanced over to the person who was currently taking about her high school adventures playing water polo. It was innocent enough until she started talked about how she would just appear to just float there when in reality she was more or less drowning another girl under the water's surface with her legs. "Sounds evil to me."

"It's not that bad." Shovel jumped in surprise and whirled around.

"You're one of the spooks," he realized, looking at the hoodie that was actually a blue, although the overall look was still the same.

The spook cocked his head to the side. "And you're new around here. You're right, though. I'm Living. Anyway, the teacher's fine. It's the homework you have to look out for."

"Is it that bad?" Shield asked, already clearly dreading the work.

"Depends on how much you like to cry," Living replied swiftly.

"Let me guess, you failed this class and that's why you know, huh?" Shovel guessed.

"Nah, this is my first time," Living replied. "It got my older brother to cry, though."

"Which one?" Shovel asked. "Don't you have a lot of brothers?"

"Actually, it got three of them to cry," Living informed them. "Wimpy, I'm not surprised. Scary and Sexy, however… yeah, that's bad, they're way tougher than Wimpy."

"I'm going to die here, aren't I?" Shield asked, seemingly already on the verge of tears.

"If Wimpy can get through it, so can you," Living told them. "You just have to be careful, and study with someone who's willing to let you bawl on them."

"That's not helping," Shield muttered.

* * *

"She gave us homework on our first day…" Shield complained as they exited the room.

"Technically, it is a couple weeks into the year, so we shouldn't be too surprised, especially after what Living told us," Shovel reminded her.

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Shield muttered. "We're going to have to talk to someone who actually knows what's going on in there, aren't we? Ugh, human interaction."

"Hey, I thought you were the extrovert here? What's this dread for interaction about?" Shovel questioned.

"I'm fine with talking to people, just not asking them about what I'm doing. I thought you would have figured this out by now. It makes me feel stupid," Shield replied.

"Yeah, you and me both," Shovel replied. "So let's just go find someone who knows!"

Shield groaned.

* * *

"Hey Plague!" Shovel called out.

Plague glanced up from his book with a scowl. "What?" He spat.

Shovel tried to ignore the cold behavior as he asked, "You know anyone that can help us with our Lang & Lit work?"

"Are you insulting me?" Plague asked. Shovel frowned in confusion. "Saying I'm not smart enough in that class, so you have to ask someone else?" He suddenly grinned and let out a small laugh. "You'd be right, of course; I'm terrible at literature. Almost as bad as Tinker, in fact. Honestly, I recommend talking to a senior. Why did you ask me, by the way?"

"Because you were the first guy I saw that I recognized," Shovel replied sheepishly.

Plague shrugged to himself, seemingly intrigued by the fact that the new children would so willingly approach and interact with him. "Lovely. Thank you very little for reminding me that I have homework in there, by the way. I have to deal with that class tomorrow and I am not prepared at all."

"Plague, you ready to go?" Mona asked as she appeared.

Plague nodded and tucked the book he had been reading under his arm. "Yeah. But why are you asking me? I was waiting on you."

"Because you're the one who was busy chatting it up with these weirdos," she said, gesturing to Shovel and Shield with a lighthearted grin that showed she meant no offense.

"They talked to me first," Plague informed her.

"About what?" Mona questioned.

"Lang & Lit help," Shield answered.

Mona stared at them for a moment. "Good luck with that," she said. "I don't think anyone can help you with that shit. And that reminds me I never finished my homework."

Plague laughed. "Neither did I."

Mona sighed. Despite this, she didn't look particularly unhappy. "Your place or mine this time?"

"I went shopping yesterday," Plague answered with a grin that was teetering on being maniacal.

Mona adopted a similar facial expression as she questioned, "You got the toothpaste?" Plague nodded. The grin grew. "Then let's make some shit explode!"

Shovel looked to Shield in fear. 'You can make things explode with toothpaste?!' He mouthed.

'I didn't think so!' Shield replied.

The two other students started talking about what exactly they intended to destroy as they walked away. Among the list was a teddy bear, a cat (hopefully not a living one), and a packet of candy. This last option was quickly scratched out because it would be a waste of perfectly good sugar.

"And I'm frightened of them now," Shovel commented.

"You and me both," Shield replied. "Wanna just forget that just happened?" Shovel nodded. "Probably the wise thing to do. Let's go find your friend who told us about the lunches."

"Propeller?" Shovel questioned.

"Yeah, him, I suppose," Shield muttered. "He'd be of some help, right?"

"Well, he _is_ a senior," Shovel replied.

Shield paused midstep. "Why was he in a class for our grade, then?"

"Because I failed," a familiar voice informed them.

Shovel and Shield whipped around.

"Propeller, morning!" Shovel greeted. "Do you think you can help us figure out what we're doing in Lang & Lit?"

Propeller frowned. "Did you not ask the teacher?"

"She scares us," Shield replied softly.

"And she was surrounded immediately after class," Shovel added.

Propeller laughed. "I'm afraid I can't help you there! I don't know where the class is right now, and frankly, I'm not sure you know either!"

"You can't try?" Shovel asked, deflating somewhat.

"I have… something I need to do," Propeller told them.

"Oh… what is it?" Shield asked excitedly.

"Shield, don't go bothering him," Shovel said.

"It's a secret," Propeller said with a smirk. "Tell you what, when I'm sure you aren't going anywhere, I'll show you."

Shovel sighed sadly. "Oh trust us; we won't be leaving anytime soon."

Propeller shrugged. "That has yet to be seen."

"Don't tell us you're making an active effort to get us moved out of the town," Shovel said, dreading the thought of another move.

"Not a chance," Propeller reassured them. "I'm quite fond of you; I wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, we should hope not," Shield said. "Not after what happened in the other town."

"What happened?" Propeller asked, unaware of the incident.

"Some asshat kid at our school decided he didn't like having a bunch of orphans in his educational facility, so he burned down the orphanage," she informed him, quite bitter about the event.

"Oh…" Propeller breathed. "So that's why you," he pointed to Shovel and then to Shield, "and you and… ah, I got it now. Huh."

Shield giggled. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Uh, speaking of which, we should probably get back. We need to get working on that homework," Shovel reminded her.

Shield sighed and began looking for a suitable window to throw her out of.

* * *

Shovel and Shield walked through the door of their new residence and were greeted by, "You two are a little later than I would have anticipated. Did you already make some friends?"

"Y-yes, actually, Mr.-" Shovel started, but was cut off.

"No mister, kid," the man told him. "It's unnecessary and just takes up time."

"Uh, alright… Polar," Shovel replied, feeling quite strange referring to the man in such a manner.

Polar nodded. "Good enough. Run along, now, I need to make sure dinner is made."

The two nodded and walked away.

"He still scares me," Shield said.

"Yeah," Shovel muttered. "Seriously, how did he get to be in charge?"

"Well, he is kinda a big teddy bear," Shield replied. "A very big and kinda scary teddy bear, but a teddy bear nonetheless."

"I know, but first impressions mean everything, and my first impression was 'I'm going to die here, aren't I?'" Shovel laughed.

"Mine was a simple 'holy crap'," Shield grinned.

"Yeah, seriously, who thought it was a good decision for him to be the first one we would meet in this town?" Shovel shrugged to himself as he let it drop. "Ah, anyway, so… our work?"

Shield nodded and took off her backpack, pulling out her new notebook. "Right, right, so do you know what an FOA is?"

* * *

Shovel and Shield walked silently, feeling dead inside after an hour of trying to figure out their homework in language and literature, not to mention any other work they got trying to keep up with the rest of the classes they were now in. In front of them, Mona and Plague were talking about whatever it was they were doing the day before.

"You _did_ buy the off-brand, right?" Mona questioned.

"Are you implying I bought the on-brand?" Plague shot back.

Mona frowned. "Is that even a thing? And I'm just saying that you might have. That was far less spectacular than it should have been, and everything else seemed right."

"There is the chance…" Plague muttered.

"Let's look at it after school," Mona suggested, to which Plague nodded.

"Man, those two are weird," Shield whispered.

"Tell me about it," Shovel replied. "And to think I used to believe the people at our other school were odd."

"Are you calling us crazy?" Asked a voice from behind them.

Shovel let out a small shriek of surprise while Shield jumped. They looked behind them to find Tinker had been walking not far behind them.

"O-oh, well, I mean, not in a bad way," Shovel said, placing a hand over his heart in an attempt to calm it.

"You're still calling us crazy," Tinker pointed out.

"Yes, but I'll admit that we are also pretty nuts ourselves," Shovel muttered. "So, I mean… yeah."

"You are terrible with people, aren't you?" Tinker guessed.

"Beyond terrible," Shield answered for him with an amused grin on her face.

Tinker rolled his eyes and feel silent, merely walking beside them.

Shovel let out a sigh and looked to Shield. "Thanks," he muttered, unsure himself if it was meant to be sarcastic or not. "So, what's your first period today?"

Shield held up her finger as she looked for her schedule. She pulled it out and glanced at it. "Bio," she muttered with dread. "Well, that's draining. At least I have art afterwards, that's not too stressful, right?"

"You don't know the teacher," Tinker said.

Shovel looked at the smaller boy. "Please don't make her feel worse."

Tinker shrugged uncaringly. "It's true. Teacher's a nut. Of course, the actual projects are pretty cool, but… That doesn't help too much."

"You're making me more stressed out the more you talk," Shield said.

Tinker raised an eyebrow at her. "You have no clue how to handle stress, do you?"

"Not a clue," Shield sighed.

Tinker grinned, and it almost came off as evil. "I can give you something that might help. Shovel, too."

Shovel, somewhat unnerved by the grin, replied, "Thanks, but, uh, no, I don't think we should take you up on that offer. We should, um, learn how to… deal with it ourselves."

Tinker frowned. "Alright. Suit yourself, I suppose. If you ever need it, though, the offer is open." He spotted a nearby friend and approached them, leaving the two orphans alone.

"Why did you turn him down?" Shield questioned.

"I didn't like that grin on his face," Shovel answered. "It made me think he was up to something."

"I feel like you're just being paranoid, but that was a creepy face he made," Shield agreed.

The two walked for a while before Shield seemed to realize something and looked back down at her schedule.

"Ah shit," she muttered.

"What's up?" Shovel asked, leaning slightly to look at the paper.

"I have PE today," Shield whined.

"At least it's the last period," Shovel replied. "And hey, don't feel too bad. I have that too."

Shield let out a soft sigh. "Ah, well, that makes me feel better, at least."

* * *

"Hey Shovel," Shield called out upon locating him at lunch. Upon seeing him look at her, she asked, "Did you learn anything in biology when you took it?"

"I haven't taken it," Shovel answered.

"Oh, oops," Shield muttered.

"Why?" Shovel questioned.

Shield shrugged. "Well, the teacher just sat around talking the whole time to Plague. I think it was on their exploding toothpaste experiment."

Shovel frowned. "So you didn't learn anything."

"No," Shield said. "I get the distinct impression we have to do the actual learning outside of class, which is really confusing."

Shovel laughed slowly. "That's beyond confusing. Why is that class there in the first place?"

Shield shrugged again. "Fuck if I know. So, mind giving me some kind of tour, since I wasn't there for it yesterday?"

"Propeller's probably better at it," Shovel said. "So I think we outta find him first."

"Well, good thing I'm here now!" Propeller said, popping up out of nowhere.

"Gods, are you trying to give me a heart attack?" Shield questioned, whipping around to glare at him.

"Nah, but it is fun to mess with you," Propeller said with an amused smirk.

Shield sighed. "Can we just get on with it?"

Propeller nodded. "Sure, come now!"

Shovel proceeded to then ignore the next 10 minutes of seemingly aimless wandering. They finished a little earlier than he had anticipated, though, and Shield ended up snapping in his face to get him to return to reality.

"Uh, what?" He asked.

"Propeller asked us a question, dummy," Shield informed him.

Shovel chuckled nervously. "Um, sorry, I was tuning you out. What now?"

Propeller laughed, greatly amused and seemingly not particularly surprised. "I asked, no one's offered you anything strange, right?"

Shovel frowned as he recalled his time with Tinker on the way to school.

"Well, Tinker did," Shield replied.

"He offered some kind of stress relief something or other," Shovel added.

"Did you take him up on it?" Propeller asked, almost as though worried.

Growing confused, Shovel replied, "No, we didn't. I didn't trust the look on his face. It looked evil."

Propeller nodded happily. "Good. Do not take anyone up on any similar offers."

"Oh? And why is that?" Shield asked, voicing the question that Shovel was just about to ask.

"Because it'll ruin the surprise I have for you," Propeller answered. "Which apparently I'm now going to have to bump up some."

"But because you just said 'don't take anyone up on their offers', shouldn't we not take you up on yours?" Shovel asked.

Propeller seemed taken aback by the thought. "I didn't mean mine. Besides, it's not an offer."

Shovel looked to Shield, worried, and found that she was giving him a similar look.

Propeller laughed nervously. "Don't worry, it's nothing bad! It's… uh, kinda like a game. You'll see. I can't have anyone else stealing you away."

"And if we don't want to join your game?" Shovel asked.

Propeller appeared to have been equal parts prepared and caught off guard by the question. "You won't! Trust me." He let out another laugh.

* * *

"Tinker!" Propeller yelled when he finally found him during passing time.

"What?" Said boy asked irritably.

"They're mine," Propeller said simply.

"Oh?" Tinker raised an eyebrow. "And just when did this occur?"

"Earlier," the older male replied simply. "Point is, stay away."

Tinker scoffed, but did not reply beyond that, merely walking away before he caught the attention of anyone around them.

Propeller smirked. He knew the young man could not reply too much without drawing the notice of someone, namely a teacher, which could lead them getting sent to the office if their disagreement grew too heated. Explaining what was going on was not something either wanted to do.

He had won this round. He was in control of the new students' direction now.

* * *

"Shovel!" Shield yelled, running into her friend.

"Are you going to do this every time?" Shovel asked with a small laugh after recovering his balance.

"Sure, why not?" Shield said.

Shovel shrugged in acceptance. "Okay, sure. So, you ready for PE?"

"Not in the slightest," Shield replied with a grin.

"I don't think anyone is," Shovel laughed, looking around the room. In the far corner was Mona, who had curled up with her legs to her chest and seemed to be glaring at the room in general. Plague sat beside her, muttering something that was probably encouragement. Many of the boys were running around with a basketball they got from somewhere, and most girls had sat down and were doing whatever they felt like.

In the very center of the room, in danger of getting hit upside the head with the ball, was a boy who kept proclaiming despite no one actively listening to him, "What is this idiocy!? Royalty should not have to run or do anything that might make them sweat! I demand you listen to me!"

"It's several weeks into the year," Shovel commented as he gazed at the boy. "Does he yell that every day?"

"Unfortunately," replied an unknown person.

Shovel wasn't sure whether or not to be surprised by yet another person making themselves known by joining one of his conversations without any warning.

Calmly, he turned around and was greeted by one of the spooks. As it was PE, the boy had dressed down… somewhat. He still wore a hoodie and covered his face that way. He was wearing shorts, though.

"I'm sorry, which one are you?" He asked. Shield elbowed him.

"It's alright," the spook informed Shield. "I prefer you ask rather than pretend you know until you can get it right. I'm Wimpy."

"Oh, so you're Wimpy," Shovel muttered.

"You've heard of me?" Wimpy asked.

"Yeah," Shovel answered. "Living mentioned you in English."

"Oh fuck, don't remind me of that," Wimpy requested, looking as though he were reliving a nightmare.

"Righto," Shovel laughed.

Wimpy nodded gratefully. He glanced at their attire. "You aren't dressed down," he noted.

"Nope," Shovel said.

"We don't even know where the locker rooms are," Shield informed him. "We forgot we had this class anyway."

"Not to mention that we still haven't completely settled in, so anything that would be appropriate is probably still buried," Shovel added.

Wimpy nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, well, it's not like he's going to get too on your case about it. He's weird, not mean."

"Why is 'weird' the go-to term to describe someone here?" Shovel questioned.

"Because it's true," Wimpy said.

The teacher suddenly appeared and called for everyone to get into place for roll call.

"Here we go," Shield muttered.

* * *

"Hey, can we talk?" Wimpy asked as the teacher dismissed them to the locker rooms. "I can show you the locker rooms, too."

"Uh, sure," Shovel said.

The three walked down the hall until they got to the nearby rooms of destination. They paused outside the boy's locker room.

"Oh, right," Wimpy muttered as he realized something. "You can't come in since you're a girl, right. Uh, I suppose just wait out here, and I'll be out in a minute."

Shovel and Shield nodded and watched him walk in.

"Wonder what he wants?" Shovel wondered.

"Another 'offer'?" Shield suggested.

Shovel shrugged helpless. "Just what are these things they want to show us if we end up suspecting everyone of trying to get us to see it with them?"

"Guys, there you are!" Propeller yelled, suddenly at their side.

"Tell me something," Shovel said calmly, although inside he was recovering from yet another scare, turning to look at the newcomer. "Just how many years are you people determined to take off my life, exactly?"

Propeller stared at the younger boy for a second before replying with a straight face, "Five."

"Oh shit," Shovel muttered.

"Keep it up and you'll have surpassed that goal before the end of the week," Shield said.

Propeller smiled. "Great!"

"Not great!" Shovel yelled.

"Oh, come on, your death is inevitable anyway," Shield laughed.

"Doesn't mean I want it to come early!" Shovel complained.

"Good to know you aren't suicidal, then," Propeller commented.

"You know what? Fuck you," Shovel said.

"Same to you buddy," Propeller grinned. "So, are you ready?"

"For?" Shield questioned.

"Your surprise," Propeller answered.

"Oh, the one that we have no say in?" Shovel guessed.

"That's the one!" Propeller nodded happily.

Shovel sighed.

"Wimpy wanted to talk to us," Shield said.

"It's probably just another 'offer'," Propeller replied quickly.

"That's what we thought, but… what if it's something else? One way or another, I don't want to leave him," Shovel said.

"I'll go talk to him," Propeller told them, walking into the locker room before they could protest.

* * *

Propeller approached the spook as he gathered his things. The boy glanced at him in confusion, but otherwise did not pay him any mind.

Luckily, his locker was nearby, so he started fiddling with the lock, as though he had forgotten something in there a while back and needed to get it.

"Shovel and Shield are mine, back off," he warned the other senior while not so much as lifting his gaze.

Wimpy was taken aback, and stopped his packing up. "Why am I only just now hearing about this 'claim' on them? You had time yesterday to announce or at least subtly suggest you wanted dibs when we ran into each other."

Propeller shrugged. "I didn't think it would get to be a problem so quickly. I wanted to give them time to settle in, but then I found out Tinker tried to steal them today."

Wimpy clicked his tongue. "Bastard. I wasn't going to spring it on them today, you know. Scary says he wants them. That's what he gets. But he agreed it was best for them to get comfortable before throwing them in."

"I'm not risking another attempt," Propeller informed him. "I've warned them about the 'offers' and they seem to be doing well at avoiding them. Still, I'm initiating them, and you Cloaks… not you, nor anyone else, are going to stop me."

Wimpy frowned and swiftly finished up his packing. "We'll see about this, flyboy."

"You'd better not steal them like you did our last recruit," Propeller warned.

Wimpy smirked at the other teen. "Watch us."

Propeller narrowed his eyes and turned on his heel, stomping out of the room.

* * *

"Wimpy has been dealt with," Propeller informed them, walking briskly away.

Shovel and Shield looked to each other and dashed after him.

"Not in an evil way, right?" Shield asked.

"Probably depends on your definition, but rest assured, I wouldn't hurt him unless he was a legitimate threat to your safety," Propeller assured her.

"Thank you?" Shovel muttered.

"You're welcome!" Propeller replied brightly.

"So, what now?" Shield questioned.

"Now? We go to a world of imagination!" Propeller said.

"That sounds… like something a psychotic murderer would say," Shield muttered.

Shovel snorted, amused.

Propeller rolled his eyes. "I'm not a murderer, geez."

"Sure you aren't," Shovel muttered sarcastically.

"You have no faith in your friends, do you?" Propeller asked.

"We've known you for a little over a full day," Shield reminded him.

Propeller thought for a second. "Hm, fair. Don't worry, though, I'm not going to hurt you."

"Sure you aren't," Shield laughed.

"You really need to stop being so skeptical," Propeller told her. "Come, onwards to adventure!"

* * *

"So this is adventure. Huh, I thought it would be brighter than this. Or at least not have the smell of a dump," Shield commented.

"Oh hush now, would you?" Propeller requested.

"Dude, you're leading us into a smelly alleyway; I think we have the right to complain," Shovel said.

"Well, we'll be out of the smelly alleyway soon enough," Propeller told them.

"How? It doesn't go anywhere," Shield noted, walking to the end and tapping the stone for emphasis.

Propeller nodded in acceptance of this fact. "True," he conceded. "But that's not what's important. Gather 'round, you two."

Shield looked to Shovel, who stared back with a similar look. They rather hesitantly stepped closer to the senior as he did… something. Neither of the two orphans were entirely sure what occurred, because there was a flash of light that utterly blinded both of them.

Shovel hastily blinked his eyes, trying to regain his sight. He could hear faint murmurs. Or maybe that was his ears ringing. He wasn't entirely sure. He hoped it wasn't other people saying things, because that would imply he was suddenly surrounded, because that sounded like a lot of people.

When his vision cleared up, Shovel was shocked to find that he was no longer in the alleyway. In fact, he wasn't sure where he was. It appeared very grand, that much was for sure.

The room they were now in was wide open and spacious, easily supporting the frankly massive amount of people gathering within. The primary colors to take up the space were emerald green and a gold-colored yellow. Shovel felt a headache forming trying to look at it. Luckily, the brightness of the colors was toned down by the significant lack of light, as the main source of illumination came from torches that succeeded in providing the place a medieval feel. Although there were at least a hundred heads blocking his view, Shovel was able to count somewhere around 25 doors on the main floor alone, although that was not counting the second floor, of which there was a massive staircase on the end of the room leading to it.

'How big is this place?' Shovel wanted to question someone, but he kept his thoughts to himself, as he was already being stared at. He and Shield stuck out like sore thumbs, and it had garnered everyone's attention.

Every couple of seconds, there would be a small flash and another person joined the ranks of the crowd. All were wearing masks or helmets, and at least some sort of ridiculous clothing that had some bulk to it, indicating some form of protection underneath, if they weren't outright wearing rather unwieldy looking armor. All immediately turned their gaze to the newcomers, and it made Shovel feel like he was going to have a panic attack if they didn't look away soon.

Shovel looked to Shield, and found that, while she appeared wholly unnerved by the scene, she was somehow managing to remain fairly calm.

"Hey, coming through!" A voice called out as a body pushed its way through the crowd. "Stupid Crimson Cloaks and their scythes. I forgot I died yesterday."

The person broke through the crowd and stood before the two teens with a relaxed stance. With a gold-colored helmet and a green jacket, Shovel got the impression that either this person was the person who had this place painted, or he took heavy inspiration from his environment when deciding upon his outfit for the day.

"Sorry, I would have appeared with you, but something happened yesterday that prevented that." Upon seeing the confused and wary expressions on the children in front of him, the man laughed and pulled off his helmet.

"P-Propeller?" Shovel asked incredulously. "Alright, seriously, what is going on here!?"

Propeller snickered. "Where to even begin?" He looked fondly at his surroundings. "This," he gestured to everything around him, "is another world, far removed from our own. People were somehow allowed in, and slowly, a whole society came into being."

"Hey Shovel?" Shield muttered. Upon finding her friend was looking to her, she asked, "Do you remember taking any drugs before leaving the school?"

Propeller snorted in amusement. "This is no dream. Come, walk with me." He looked to the crowd before them. "Get to your duties, everyone. Wimpy implied war. The techies might come in as well."

Shield and Shovel looked to each other with shock. War? And Wimpy was the one to imply it?

This got the massive group's attention, and everyone scrambled to get prepared for a possible attack.

"Come," Propeller said calmly. "We must hurry."

"What do you mean? Someone tell us what's going on!" Shovel demanded.

"You will learn as you go," Propeller assured them, striding through the chaos around him with a particular ease.

Shovel sighed at the lack of cooperation. He looked to Shield.

"We don't really have much of a choice here, do we?" He asked, hoping that she would know.

"I don't think so," she muttered, shaking her head, visibly annoyed.

"Let's go then," Shovel said, slowly following the golden helmet wading through the sea of the masses.

As they walked, Shield muttered, "This is too many people."

"Yeah, right?" Shovel said. "I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack."

"I get what you mean, but no, not that," Shield told him. "They all appear to be at least high school age and not too much older than maybe a year beyond the final grade, though, let's be real here, it's kinda hard to tell, and yet this is at least half the school. It only has… 200, 300 people? And there's that other group, what was Propeller muttering about 'Crimson Cloaks'? And then he also mentioned the techies… Not sure who they are, but I imagine they've got a good bit of people, too."

"You're right," Propeller announced from behind them. "Half of our members are actually denizens of this world."

"So they don't appear in the real world?" Shovel questioned.

Propeller nodded. "Correct. But do not refer to it as the real world. Both are equally real."

"Then what the hell do we call it?" Shield questioned.

"Well, no one knows the real name of it," Propeller informed them. "Most call it 'Lazarus,' though." **(A/N: I don't know, Lazarus was the first thing to come to mind when I decided I needed a name, then I realized it in some way fit because of revival and all.)**

"Isn't that a biblical figure?" Shovel asked, cocking his head to the side. "The first zombie, or something?"

Shield glanced at her friend. "I didn't know you knew anything about the bible."

"I don't," Shovel replied sheepishly.

Propeller nodded again. "That it is. I'm not entirely sure who named it, but I think they had just read a poem on the guy and thought it fit because in this world, you can revive once you're dead. The inhabitants didn't have a name for the world, actually, so it was allowed to just stick with no real complaint."

Shovel cringed. "Ow."

Shield snickered. "Yeah, right?"

Propeller smiled. "It's not as bad as you would think. I died yesterday, but you don't see me complaining. Now then, let's go, we need to get you a respawn crystal."

"A what?" Shield asked as Propeller picked up the pace. "Hey wait, stop, hold on! Explain things for once!"

"What do you want explained?" Propeller asked in return, sounding borderline exasperated at Shovel.

"Everything!" Shield yelled.

Shovel frowned and decided to be more specific. "Why is this world here? What is our end goal by coming here? How was it discovered, and how long has this been going on?"

Shield looked to Shovel and muttered, "Yeah, what he said."

Propeller frowned. "Oh boy, that's a lot. Let's see, why…? That one cannot be answered. No one knows why it's here, not even its residents. It's like our world. Do you know exactly how we came to be?"

"Not off the top of my head, but I could find a book on the subject," Shield answered.

Propeller laughed lightly. "True, I suppose. But they don't have that. So they don't have a clue. Now then, end goal, end goal… To grow stronger and to sever the ties with this world."

"That sounds like it contradicts," Shovel commented.

Propeller paused in thought, before deciding. "It kinda does. You know those kids shows that include the other world that invades the real one and the heroes have to invade their world to stop it?"

"Maybe…" Shield muttered. "We don't watch a lot of TV, but I think I get the idea."

Propeller seemed satisfied with this. "Good, because it's kind of like that, only everyone's fighting each other all the time rather than getting together to fight the big evil. Competition is better for growing stronger than cooperation in this case, yeah? Anyway, how long has this been going on? At least since Sexy was in his first year."

The two younger teens were silent for a moment before both cocked their head to the side and questioned, "Sexy?"

Propeller couldn't help but laugh at their confusion. "The oldest of the spooks. He's out of school now. He's the second in command of the Crimson Cloaks."

"That's an interesting name," Shield commented.

"And there's another question!" Shovel yelled suddenly. "Who's the Crimson Cloaks; who's the techies?"

Propeller looked to Shovel and questioned, "Techies? Oh, right, the Tinkering Technicians."

"That's not what I meant, although it is nice to hear their names. Tell me who they are!" Shovel demanded.

"Why does it matter so much to you?" Propeller asked, honestly confused by the younger boy's insistence on learning. "It would be much easier, although not as fast, to learn by following along as we go."

"I hate being left in the dark, and just because you may have learned by just blindly pretending you knew what you were doing until you did understand doesn't mean I'll understand all the same!" Shovel argued.

"Just tell him," Shield advised.

Propeller sighed and opened his mouth to finally (hopefully, anyway) tell the orphans some explanations.

He was cut off by a blaring siren.

"Dammit," the senior swore. He ushered the two younger children to a nearby room. "Stay here, and don't move. I cannot risk you getting in the crossfire, not without a way to come back to life." He slammed the door.

"This place is brutal," Shield noted rather casually.

* * *

 **So, I decided to try something new for this story. A whole new dynamic in which it follows more a 'tell through the actions of the characters rather than have long paragraphs explaining things like I'm about to do,' which will mostly be used outside of Shovel's PoV, because he demands exposition, everyone else just says fuck it and rolls with it. This is rather new for me, (as is something akin to planning, so... hey) but considering I like to just start my stories off in the middle of something, I think it's actually a good way for me to write. Plus, I think this is the longest chapter I've made, so, clearly something is working here. Certainly the longest opening.**

 **So, Shovel and Shield... these two are more or less there to act as the sane guys. They are the ones to ask the questions for the readers, because for everyone else, this is their reality, and they are not going to act surprised and require some form of exposition. However, despite this, they are not major to the extent of, say, Firestar in the Warriors books, which is who I think of when I think of the double S's roles in the story. Once the hype from 'new players' is gone, they are not going to be significant. They are just going to be a pair of faces in the crowd. By no means are they going to be ignored, but they aren't going to be, say, a group's go-to people for situations. Everyone can be revived in Lazarus, so that takes away any reason for them to spontaneously gain that role by death or injury of everyone better than them, and they will never reach a high enough rank fast enough before the end goal is reached.**

 **I initially started this as a Persona/SK crossover, but then I realized I wanted there to be many spooks (of which only lkcsi will get, so just roll with it) and then it occurred to me that I cannot come up with enough even semi-unique Personas for all the characters, so I said 'shit' and just kept rolling with it until my mind formulated something better. I knew I wanted another world, but how to get people to join? I filled that gap by deciding that characters could join through the use of a one-time use power (fuck if I know how it originated) that healed any injuries (I had already decided that dying in the other world without the powers would not be a temporary death) and allowed that person to fight and revive in that world, with their own customized armor and weapon (read: their canon armor and weapons) And for some reason, I decided to make it so everyone had something covering their face. Meanwhile, eventually, the group thought evolved, and we have what we have now.**


	2. Them's Some Odd Rules

**9705 words, bitches! ...Ahem, sorry.**

 **Sorry if the characterization sometimes gets weird. I have so many characters to keep in mind that it gets a bit difficult. For now, know that:  
Scary, Ninja and Sexy as generally supposed to be rather serious, Chibi has a childish side, but can be serious, I'm working on Banana, but he's a bit of a jokerster, as is Sour, Wimpy and Dorky. Cutie is the most childish of the group.  
Shovel is upbeat and kinda childish.  
Shield is more grounded than Shovel.**

 **Jason: I'm glad to see you! Haha, yes, Hanburger was intentional. I asked lkcsi what to call it without any true knowledge besides what I had let her in on at the time, and she said that. She meant hamburger, and tried to change it to pretzel when I told her she'd regret it... I just rolled with the typo anyway. It's... a work in progress. If you want to suggest a more appropriate name, I would appreciate it.  
** **Hm, interesting HCs there. I think Mona would make a cute small child, but at least in my mind, she's maybe only a bit shorter than the tallest spook, of which I think is quite tall. I never gave too much thought into their normal people designs. Lazy like that, see. I should do something about that, though, so I can differentiate later on once they do get armor.**

 **MeRciL3ss: Thanks... What part was amazing, though?**

* * *

"What do we have?" Propeller asked.

"Looks like most of their forces," Dagger informed his leader, looking through a pair of binoculars. "Anyone that stayed behind is probably a healer. Right now, they aren't moving. Appears like they're talking."

Shotel stole away the object from Dagger, gazing through it. "I think they got into some fights on the way. One of the spook's got some damage on him."

This perked Propeller's interest. "Which one?"

Shotel's eyes widened. "Wow, it looks like it's Ninja!"

"Ninja's damaged?" Propeller asked incredulously.

Shotel nodded. "Yeah, so are some of their other forces as well, but all the other spooks look fine, unfortunately."

Propeller let out a sigh of relief. "That evens the odds so much. Wonder if they ran into the techies, and rather than band together and argue with each other later which will get who, they decided to just attack. How bad is he hurt? Will he be able to heal by the time he gets here?"

"Hard to tell from this distance; the interface is really small," Shotel said, leaning forward on the railing trying to get a good look.

"Oh, give me that," Dagger snarled as he snatched the binoculars back. He gazed through it. "Max is 1025, he's down to 934."

Propeller frowned. "Not as much as I would have hoped. He could just snack on watercress until he's back to full and he'll still be out there. Still, it's the most I've ever seen him damaged. Probably not the tech's if so low though... Wonder what he ran into."

"I heard they were recently hunting the rare bull," Shotel said.

"I thought it was a Minotaur," Dagger objected.

"You both know that's not it," Propeller told them, lightly smacking them both on the back of the heads.

"But they look like Minotaurs," Dagger complained.

"We got to call it something we understand. Otherwise, we're going to go about calling Minotaurs in school whatever obscure name the locals use," Shotel added.

"I don't care," Propeller informed them. "It's disrespectful to the inhabitants of Lazarus if we don't learn about their world. They're making an effort to connect to us; we should do the same."

"You don't have to, sir," Moon informed him as he walked out to the balcony. "We do appreciate the concern, though."

"Moon," Propeller muttered. "We aren't going to be connected for much longer, but I don't want to just not learn about you guys."

"I know, sir," Moon said with a smile. Looking to the large mass, he asked, "So what's the plan? Where're the ones we need to protect?"

"In the broom closet," Propeller answered.

"You're kidding," Shotel accused.

"I panicked, alright?" Propeller said in an attempt to defend himself. "Ugh, whatever. Where's Bow? I need him and his forces."

"He and Crossbow are preparing the forces right now," Moon informed him.

"Propeller, sir!" Sky yelled as he ran in, his bow clenched tightly in his hand. "We're ready for your orders!"

Propeller looked back to the mass. "Take aim and wait."

"Yes sir!" Sky yelled, dashing off to relay the information.

"Moon, get my runner," Propeller ordered.

"Tree?" Moon questioned.

"No, Death," Propeller replied sarcastically.

Moon sighed and took off.

"It looks like Stone's got a massive dent in him," Dagger noted. "He's down 20%. And it looks like that was a while ago, because it just jumped 5%."

"Is that Serpent I see limping?" Shotel questioned, squinting in an attempt to see better, pointing so Dagger can look.

Dagger obeyed and turned his gaze to the side. "I don't think he's limping. I think he just tripped. Can't believe he's walking around when they're allowed to rest, though."

"Well, fuck," Shotel muttered.

"Sir?" Tree asked as he dashed in.

Propeller looked to his runner. "The Cloaks are coming. You know what to say?"

Tree nodded confidently. "Of course!"

"Then do your job!" Propeller ordered.

Tree nodded and turned, dashing off.

* * *

"Ninja," Scary called out. "How are you doing?"

"Fucking alchemists must have given the techs some sort of poison," Ninja grunted. "And of course they just have to think to use it. I'm feeling surprisingly weak. I think I'll run out of Sunny-D before I'll feel at my best again."

Scary gazed at his brother sympathetically. "You can go back, you know."

"I'm fine," Ninja insisted. "Besides, how long has it been since we've raided the flyboys, eh?"

"I know," Scary said. "One way or another, though, we should send a group to take what they can from the techies while they're weak. It's been so long since they've been willing to trade with us that we're falling behind on tech."

"You really should go, Ninja," Chibi told him. "You're one of the sneakiest of us, so you can slip by the remaining living guys. We can record it if you want."

"Why don't you go? You're at full health and you're small," Ninja shot back.

"Well, in that case we outta send Cutie," Chibi said.

"How about you both go?" Sexy asked, although it came out more as a demand.

Chibi and Ninja were silent for a moment, and Scary got the impression they were both biting back sighs of annoyance.

"Record it for us?" Chibi requested.

Dorky stepped forward. "I'll get it for you."

"Only if Sour and Living get it too," Ninja said.

"Shouldn't Sexy and Scary record too?" Chibi questioned. "They do all those flips and everything, and it's always cool to see things from their perspective."

Scary rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine, I'll record as well."

"I suppose it would be good for us all to record and then we can watch later for mistakes," Sexy suggested.

"I think that would be cool," Banana commented. "But Chibi and Ninja need to get video of their adventure in the tech's hideout."

Sexy nodded approvingly. "We can use it for the formation of a more recent map. We haven't been in there since Treasure took out a couple walls in that one rage fit he inexplicably had. The rebuilding probably caused some layout changes."

"Didn't one of the alchemists cause that?" Cutie asked. "I never managed to get confirmation on that one."

"I pretty sure Fuchsia ended up causing it," Chibi informed his brother. "You know how she tends to be a bit of trickster."

"All alchemists are tricksters," Scary stated matter-of-factly. He glanced at Chibi and Ninja. "We've wasted enough time. Go."

Chibi and Ninja nodded and turned around, walking away.

"I think he meant faster than that," Living commented.

"I did," Scary replied, shaking his head. "But it's not like we need to be in any hurry. All but a couple of those arrogant techs are dead and it's not like the flirts are going anywhere, unless they somehow figured out how to rip that fortress from its foundations and stick it on wheels."

"Well, it's pretty flimsy," Dorky laughed. "It wouldn't be that difficult. All you'd need is-"

"Please don't start," Sour requested.

"You're no fun," Dorky told him.

"Nope," Sour replied uncaringly.

"Guys, focus," Scary sighed. He turned to the rest of his army. They were almost prepared, he could tell. They had to take a couple moments to rest their legs from the long trek and the Tinkering Technician's surprise attack and eat some watercress if need be, but within the next 2 minutes, they would be able to fight. If not, he would force them to anyway, because the more time they spent waiting about, the more time the Flirty Flyers would have to prepare defenses. He turned his gaze to the fortress.

"Man, if it wasn't the threat that the techs could get their hands on these guys, I would say fuck it to this. It's not like we need the people when we have all of the spook brothers, a 10 man army, with another one who may or may not be old enough by the end of this to join in," Falchion grumbled. "Dammit, someone's going to have to kill me afterwards, I can't have this showing up; my mother'll freak!"

"And you can't just kill yourself?" Spear asked. "Just hide it under your shirt."

"I can't!" Falchion complained. "She's a motherfucking bloodhound! Do you know how awkward it was trying to explain a long sword gash across my chest? I nearly died the day she almost sniffed out the multiple arrow punctures. Last time I dare not die in here."

Scary sighed at the conversation and decided it was time to go, clearing his throat and calling out. "Up and at it, boys and girls, we're moving out!"

"Not so fast!" A new voice called out.

Scary slowly looked to the newcomer. "Tree," he purred.

"We are prepared for you," said boy announced. "You will not be taking the new guys."

"How do you know we want them?" Scary asked slowly. "For all you know, we were on a large traveling exposition to a threat on our territory when the techs attacked us and we're only here for help."

"Bullshit," Tree accused, crossing his arms. "I just saw you send Chibi and Ninja back!"

Scary frowned. He made a slight gesture and Sour moved up behind the runner, his candy scythe at the ready. With a quick slice, the boy was cut apart at the waist.

Tree rolled his eyes at their stupidity and allowed himself to die.

* * *

Propeller frowned as Dagger announced that Tree was dead.

"Fire," he announced simply to Shotel, who, with a crossbow, loosed a bolt. This one object was soon followed by many more shots as the rest of the bow forces releasing their projectiles.

Scary frowned. "Ah, shit," he breathed. "Shields!"

The Crimson Cloaks burst into action, desperately jumping forward, trying to raise their defenses in time. Most did, although one or two got hit. Luckily, none of them were immediately fatal.

The spook brothers jumped backwards to avoid the hail of weaponry while those with better defenses dealt with what was coming for them.

Wimpy frowned. "Ah geez, and suddenly I regret wearing light armor."

"And you'd prefer heavy armor?" Banana questioned.

"No way," Wimpy replied, cringing as he recalled the one time he had tried it out. "I would prefer to not die constantly of overheating."

"Wimp," Living playfully accused.

"It's in my name," Wimpy said, rather unconcerned. "I don't see you wearing any either."

"That's because light armor is obviously light and easy to move in," Sexy told him, effortlessly slashing an arrow out of the air without even looking at it before it could hit Sour.

"Whoa, thanks Sexy!" Sour called out, trying to concentrate.

"Forward march!" Scary ordered as the final arrows of the round stopped raining down. They only had about three to five seconds before the next impending shower of arrows reached them, but progress was progress nevertheless.

"This is going to take all day," Sexy complained. "I don't have time for this."

"You gonna rush in then?" Scary asked, concerned.

"Yeah," Sexy nodded. "I'll be tired, but I have studying to do."

"Let me come with you," Banana requested. "I have work to do too, so if I die, I'll have some more time on me."

Sexy nodded. "Anyone else wanna join the suicide group?"

No one moved.

Banana shrugged. "Your loss." He prepared himself to run. "Ready?"

"Try to keep up," Sexy told him, dashing past the vanguard as soon as he saw a chance.

"Oi, wait up!" Banana yelled indignantly, running behind his brother, desperately slashing at the air, trying to ward off incoming arrows. He missed and got hit in the shoulder. He cried out but kept moving.

"Focus!" Sexy snarled as he allowed the younger child to catch up. "I don't know what you've been doing, but you're down to half already!"

"I can't figure out where arrows a mile away are going to land as well as you!" Banana growled.

"Then-" Sexy cut himself off as his brother was hit again. This time, the arrow flew right between the slits of his visor and embedded itself inbetween his eyes. Sexy clicked his tongue in annoyance and continued running as his brother's body fell to the ground, slowly dissolving into dust.

* * *

"One spook down!" Dagger announced to Propeller's relief.

He looked at the body. "If only that had been Sexy," he snarled. Quickly turning, he announced, "I'm going to, uh, 'greet' Sexy."

"But sir, what about Scary? This is obviously some sort of suicide tactic," Shotel said.

"I know," Propeller said. "But at the same time, Sexy is the most powerful of the Cloaks. Remember, he would still be the leader if it weren't for college."

"Sir, you don't have to remind me!" Shotel yelled. "But if you die to him, even if we take him down afterwards, we'll still have six more spooks to deal with!"

"Five," Dagger corrected him. "Someone just managed a heart shot on Wimpy."

"Good," Propeller said, letting out a sigh of relief. "He's a cowardly vampire when he's caught off guard, but a frighteningly powerful spineless bloodsucker when he's prepared. Still surprised I didn't make him pass out earlier. Kinda sad, too."

Propeller turned and ran off, jumping down to the first floor, ignoring Shotel's annoyed shouting. He opened the door and walked out, shutting it tightly behind him.

Sexy stared at him blandly. "Knew you'd come," he said while providing an honorary bow.

Propeller begrudgingly returned the gesture. "Of course. I can't let you steal them. Not after the last times."

Sexy laughed and mockingly said, "Ah, Dragon and Iaito, yes? They are such good warriors."

"Oh, fuck off," Propeller snarled.

"Nah, this is too much fun," Sexy replied with a smirk.

Propeller rolled his eyes and drew his rapier, grabbing his parrying dagger with his offhand. Sexy saw this and readied his scythe.

Propeller frowned. He had thus far proved less than an ideal opponent against the spooks and their stylized farm equipment judging from his fight the day before. Their weapons had too much reach, outmatching his own by a significant margin. He could hold his own for a while, but he knew that he'd have to get pretty lucky to survive this encounter. Still, he had to fight.

He dashed forward, jumping over a slash and stabbing at Sexy's face. The spook easily backstepped, leading into another swipe. Propeller saw this and rolled forward, attempting a stab as he came back up. Sexy backstepped again, this time sweeping his weapon close to the ground. Propeller hopped and landed on top of the weapon. Admittedly, this was accidental, but the sudden jolt wretched the scythe from Sexy's hands. Deciding it best to not look this unexpected gift horse in the mouth, Propeller launched an attack, forcing Sexy back.

Sexy snarled and dodged to the side. Propeller knew where this was going and hopped back a step and then another one to the side, once again getting in the spook's way, attacking slightly to the side, watching Sexy move to the other side.

"Bad mistake," Propeller taunted, stabbing forward with his parrying dagger.

Sexy frowned and batted the hand away, making a mad dash for his weapon, succeeding in reaching it just in time to use it to block a running strike from his opponent.

Both warriors grit their teeth. This was going to be a long fight.

* * *

Scary watched the fight from afar.

"Cutie," he called out.

"Yes, brother?" Said child asked.

"Go around the flank and break in," Scary ordered.

Cutie giggled. "It's fun breaking through their windows!"

Scary nodded, though he wasn't really listening, and was instead absentmindedly wondering how many arrows the flirts had on them. "Take one of whoever you want with you; I can't have you dying too."

"Then Living, dear! You're coming with me," Cutie announced, grabbing his brother's arm.

"What are we doing?" Living asked, having not paid any attention to the exchange.

"We're gonna break some windows!" Cutie sang happily.

"Of course we are," Living replied, not particularly surprised for whatever reason.

* * *

"Cutie and Living are going around the flank," Bow growled to Crossbow. He raised his voice and yelled, "Sky, I need you moving, now! Gather a force to defend the left side!"

Sky fired off a final arrow, and, with a determined nod, dashed away.

"How long do you think that we can keep this up?" Crossbow questioned his ally.

"As long as we have arrows and bolts, at least," Bow answered bitterly.

Crossbow frowned at the non-answer. "How many do we have?"

Bow growled in annoyance. "Last time I took inventory was a month ago. And then… then, we had 300 arrows, and 200 crossbow bolts. Propeller ordered an extra 200 of each yesterday, but we haven't gotten them."

"And that explains why I am suddenly grabbing empty air," Crossbow said, futilely reaching for another bolt. "Honestly, I know I'm fast at reloading, but this is just ridiculous."

"Oh, for fuck's sake," the leader of the bowmen snarled, exasperated. "Just go defend the left side and send Sky back up if the fight hasn't broken out yet, would you?"

Crossbow took off without a word, jumping down to the first floor rather than take the stairs. The damage he took was minimal, and thus inconsequential.

As he ran to the left wing, he swapped out his crossbow for a straight sword and scarfed down a bit of watercress before equipping his buckler. He heard a commotion and sighed, sprinting into the room and attacking the first red thing he saw.

Cutie screamed as the surprise attack left his midsection run through. Angrily, he retaliated with a spinning sweeping attack. Crossbow was caught in the side with the point of the scythe, though he attempted to jump away, and was thrown to the side, landing painfully on glass that had broken when the window several feet above them had been shattered. How the spooks had managed to leap up and break through with such ease was beyond the Gallivanter.

Crossbow carefully observed both his life and Cutie's. His attack was apparently the only one to hit the Cloak, but left him at half health due to his meager health pool, of which was draining ever so slowly as he bled out from the sword lodged in his back. The Gallivanter, meanwhile, still had three fourths of his perfectly average life remaining. He just had to get out of his current predicament and remove his sword. The spook would bleed out soon enough regardless of if anyone paid him any mind for the rest of the fight.

He rolled away to the left to get away from an attack and scrambled to get up; glimpsing the fight that Living was dealing with as he did so. The man was holding up rather well, only down a couple hit points from several glancing blows, taking little away from his frankly massive pool of health. Reize was rather unfortunately dead, his head missing from his body. The poor boy must have jumped in to help, but was cut down immediately. His head was nowhere to be seen, and was either knocked clear out of the room, or had already dissolved. Crossbow couldn't quite tell, nor did he really care. Sky was desperately attempting to keep the Cloak occupied, no doubt waiting for reinforcements.

Crossbow carefully pulled out his dagger out of paranoia, pointing it at his opponent. Cutie smirked confidently and slashed. Crossbow jumped back out of range and dashed forward when the blade missed, ripping his sword from the Cloak's back before he could recover. Cutie cried out and jumped away from his opponent, watching his health rapidly drop. He pulled out some Sunny-D, but Crossbow knew that by the time it took effect, he would be dead. Speaking of taking effect, it was then that the Gallivanter's food finally worked, and his health healed. Now, he was only missing an eighth of his total points.

Cutie paused, realizing that he was going to die regardless of what he ate or drank. He put away the bottle with a sigh and jumped at Sky. Crossbow's eyes went wide at the sudden tactic, and he rushed forward to try and stop it. He was much too late, however, and Sky was dead before he realized what was happening.

"Ah shit," Crossbow whispered under his breath.

"Brother, I'm kinda hurt here," Cutie whimpered to his older brother, looking at him with pitiful frown. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Living said, unperturbed. "Just help me take him out, would you?"

Cutie smiled. "Gladly."

"Oh no," Crossbow sighed.

* * *

"This is getting us nowhere real quick," Sour commented.

"They've got to run out of arrows eventually," Scary said. "And when they do…"

"We kick their asses!" Dorky yelled happily.

As if on cue, the arrows stopped flying. The three remaining spooks faintly heard someone in the fortress yell 'Seriously?!'

"And now, we move," Scary announced. Raising his voice, he ordered harshly, "Forward! Do not get in Sexy's way, or I will hurt you myself!"

The remaining troops pushed forwards, rushing to greet the stream of warriors that suddenly burst from the stronghold.

Scary observed the damage done to his army as they left. Only a small fraction of his group lay dead and dissolving at his feet. He nodded contently and jumped to battle.

* * *

"I hate new players," Bow snarled. He looked to his force. They looked like they were dreading combat as much as he was. He sighed and announced, "Get to the left flank, ensure Living and Cutie are dead before joining the rest outside! Do not split up, got it?"

The bow force let out a halfhearted cheer and rushed off to assist with the battle.

* * *

"Sorry, brother," Cutie said, looking at Living with the sweetest gaze he could muster. Living was not particularly concerned.

"You took a nasty hit there," Living commented, absentmindedly wiping some blood off his blade. "But don't let mother badger you about your tiredness, alright? You nearly gave everything away last time."

Cutie frowned at his brother's attitude. "Well, fuck you too," he said as he allowed his life to slip away.

Living nodded in acceptance of this insult and proceeded to ignore his brother's disappearing corpse. He glanced to one side and then to the other, silently debating on which way to go. They had crashed right into a hallway, and where exactly anything was located at was beyond the spook.

He looked to his left and wandered over that way carefully. He looked into the next room and found it to be the main room. There was a large mass there preparing to rush outside. He saw the bow forces run down the stairs, swapping out their equipment as they went.

"Nope," Living whispered as he took off in the opposite direction. He paused and pulled out some string. He smiled.

* * *

"You have held up surprisingly well," Sexy commented as he slashed.

"As have you," Propeller replied, attempting to parry the blow.

Sexy smirked as his opponent failed and his forearm flew off. "You are out of arrows. Your group is all out here. You are hurt. You are going to lose. Just give up and let me kill you."

"No," Propeller said defiantly.

"Your loss of life and resources," Sexy shrugged uncaringly, attacking again.

Propeller growled and jumped away, sheathing his weapon for a moment and drinking a bit of Sunny-D as he landed.

"That won't help you if you're missing part of your arm," Sexy taunted. "By the time that takes effect, you will be on the brink of death, if you aren't already gone, and I will be able to kill you with sufficient ease. One way or another, you will continue to bleed."

"Oh, fuck off," Propeller snarled.

* * *

Living paused. He looked to the small, inconspicuous door. He hummed to himself as he thought.

A number of terrified shouts could be heard some way to the right, where Living had been.

"I see they found my trap," Living snickered, approaching the door. He had no time to waste, even if they would take a couple short moments to regain themselves after getting caught in his trap.

He grabbed the doorknob and tried to twist it, unsurprised to find it was locked.

"Looks like we are doing this the hard way, then," he muttered.

* * *

Scary smiled as he saw a message from Living. He had almost certainly found the children they had been searching for. It was a simple door smash away, apparently.

"Sour," Scary called out as he replied.

"Yeah?" The other spook acknowledged.

"Go to the left flank. Be careful. Help Living get our guys," Scary explained.

"On it!" Sour told him.

"Then follow me," Dorky said, appearing to ward off a halberd-wielding foe before he could hit the candy loving spook. "I'll make sure you get there!"

Sour nodded gratefully.

* * *

"Oh, for the love of…" Shield growled as she pulled out an eight of clubs, placing it next to the two of spades. She sighed and counted the piles. "Twenty-three," she announced to Shovel.

"Ouch, bad luck," the boy commented.

"I think these cards hate me. I mean, I still remember… thirty the first time. Man, was that discouraging." Shield sighed and started to gather up her cards.

"Better than that one time I got thirty five. Now that was sad," Shovel said.

"That's because you're terrible. I was watching and you could have jumped so many times, but no, you couldn't be bothered to look," Shield taunted, shuffling the cards. She put them back into her box, slipping it into her pocket. "Okay, we should stop, I heard the doorknob move."

Shovel deflated. "Aww, I wanted to play!"

"You can play when we get back," Shield told him as she stood. "For now, I don't want your slow ass to cause me to lose my cards if someone bursts through that door in the next minute."

Shovel sighed as he pulled himself to his feet. "Ah, fine."

The door suddenly burst apart with surprising force that made both teens flinch and cower to avoid getting a face full of splinters.

"There you are," a voice purred.

Shield slowly looked up and was not sure if she wanted to be surprised by the figure in the blue cloak standing before her.

He held out his hand to them. "Now then, are you going to come with me nice and easy, or are you going to make this difficult?"

"What are the pros and cons of both?" Shovel asked, getting an elbow to the side from his companion.

"If you don't come with me, I will knock you both out and drag your bodies behind me," the person explained. "There are no pros in the scenario."

"And if we go with you peacefully?" Shield questioned carefully.

"Then you will be welcomed by the Cloaks without suspicion," the man told them. "And I won't have to try and lug your bodies around."

Shield looked to Shovel, and then back to the man. "Can we get some time to decide?"

The man looked to the side. "Shit. Apparently, you do," he grumbled, pulling out a cutlass from nowhere and dashing off.

Shield and Shovel rushed to see what he had run off to deal with. He was fighting against five other warriors. If it were a one on one battle, the blue cloaked man would have easily murdered his enemy in no time flat. He evaded attacks seemingly without thought, knocking away his opponents' weapons without looking at the attacker when he got the chance. But this was not a one on one fight. He was unable to take advantage of any opportunities he gave himself because someone would attack him immediately after he would open another person up for retaliation.

Shovel frowned at the fighting and looked to Shield. "Your thoughts?"

"I don't think I care either way," she said. "This isn't exactly my type of pastime."

"So… we just go quietly with whoever wins this fight?" Shovel asked.

"Better option than getting hurt by the winner," Shield answered with a shrug.

"Would they hurt us, though? Propeller mentioned we have no way of reviving. Although, they seem to have no trouble murdering people, if what Propeller mentioned was anything to go by. I mean, really, 'I forgot I was killed'?" Shovel muttered.

Shield giggled. "Yeah, no, I don't have a clue. How do you forget getting killed anyway?"

"It's pretty common," a new person answered.

Both Shovel and Shield shrieked in shock. This man looked just like the other one… only with a red cloak.

Something clicked in Shovel's mind and he asked, "You're the spooks, aren't you?"

The man nodded. "That we are."

Shovel laughed in annoyance. "Great, you're even less identifiable in here." He got another elbow from Shield.

"I swear, it's like you're trying to piss them off," she commented.

"It's true!" Shovel yelled, turning to the spook. "Which one are you?"

"Sour," the teen answered.

"See? I didn't even know there was a Sourspook," Shovel said.

"Indeed," Sour muttered somewhat uncaringly. "So, are you going to come quietly, or am I going to have to force you?"

"The other guy asked us that already," Shield told him.

"That's Living, you know. And your answer was…?" Sour questioned.

"We didn't get any time to decide before the fight broke out," Shovel explained.

"So, the decision now," the spook demanded.

"Geez, we've decided that whoever doesn't die from this battle, we will follow," Shield said.

A scythe appeared in Sour's hands. Oddly enough, it appeared to be made of candy. "Then let me even the odds a bit."

"If Living was making any progress, I would have accused that of cheating," Shield commented, to which Shovel nodded.

The two spooks combined easily decimated the competition. Soon, there were five dead bodies at their feet.

"Well, that answers that," Shovel muttered, approaching the two cloaked warriors. "Looks like we're going with you."

Living nodded approvingly. "Good choice. Come on, we must hurry. If a fight breaks out, stay the hell away, got it?"

Both teens nodded in understanding, and the four set off. Living and Sour appeared to deliberately keep a slow pace for the two individuals with far less endurance than them following behind them.

Soon enough, they reached a broken window. There was a disgusting mess of blood scattered about, but strangely, no bodies.

"We'll boost you up. Dorky should be on the other side. He'll lead you from there while we deal with anything else that appears," Living told them, immediately grabbing Shovel and launching him up through the use of a powerful throw.

Shovel screamed like a girl in shock at the sudden action, but landed on the narrow space where the window pane had existed without incident, surprisingly. He carefully grabbed onto the wall and looked back, waiting for Shield to join him. Sour tossed her perfectly, but she nearly slipped before gaining her footing. Shovel reached out and grabbed onto her arm with his free hand, waiting until she was steady to let go.

"Is Dorky there?" Living asked them.

Shield looked down. "Well, there's at least one spook. Can't tell if it's Dorky, but yeah, probably is."

"Good enough," Sour said. "Go on down."

Shield frowned at the amount of outrageous stunts she was having to pull today and carefully hopped down. Dorky grabbed onto her when her knees buckled and she almost faceplanted.

Shovel followed soon enough, and this time Dorky somehow didn't move fast enough, and Shovel flopped to the ground rather pathetically. "Mind if I just lie here awhile?"

"No, get up," Dorky said, grabbing onto Shovel's upper arm and dragging him to his feet.

Living and Sour joined the three soon enough, rolling expertly on the ground upon landing.

"I suppose I could have tried that," Shovel commented.

"You probably could," Dorky said. "Although I wouldn't recommend that. One wrong move and you could possibly snap your neck."

Shovel paused for a moment. "Okay, yeah, no."

Sour rolled his head in a manner that gave the impression he was rolling his eyes, starting to walk away. "It's fine. Just don't try it until you have a respawn crystal."

"Alright, seriously, what is that?" Shovel asked as he started to speedwalk to keep up with the spook's pace. "Propeller did a terrible job explaining anything."

"A respawn crystal," Dorky explained, "is a case of 'exactly what it says on the tin.' It's a crystal. That allows you to respawn. After a while, anyway. It also acts as a place to store your inventory, but most people just find what works for them and stick with it, so it just holds healing items. Kind of a waste, but whatever."

"It only respawns you after a while?" Shield muttered. "So, what, we get killed and we miss the next day of class? That doesn't seem right."

"That's because it isn't," Sour said.

Dorky continued. "You can only respawn in this world after a set amount of time. However, you will appear in our world wherever it is that you set yourself to appear no more than two seconds after your death."

"So we won't be appearing next to a dumpster right next to Propeller?" Shovel questioned.

"Heavens no," Sour said, seemingly confused. "Why would he even bring you in by a dumpster?"

"To preserve the air of mystery?" Shovel suggested.

"Doubtful," Shield said. "Doesn't seem right. He could have taken us to a grassy meadow and the same effect would have been achieved, albeit with a lot less snarky humor from us."

"You people are distracting," Living muttered. "We need to focus."

"No, it's more fun to talk about Propeller," Shovel said with a grin.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, we're about to go into a battle zone. I think you want to pay attention," Living told them.

Shield spotted some of the feuding warriors and said, "Alright, maybe you aren't wrong."

"Thanks," Living sighed.

"Get on our left," Sour told them, watching them obey. "If we get into a fight that proves dangerous to your health, run. Scary has fallen back and is waiting for us with a small group. We obviously don't want to leave you alone, but if it becomes necessary, those are your instructions." Shovel and Shield nodded in understanding to this, watching the fighting out of the corner of their eyes.

Almost all of Propeller's gang in some fashion looked to the small group edging its way around the outside of the battle zone. A couple that had recently freed themselves from battle dashed towards the spooks, intent on getting the two teens back.

"Oh boy, here we go," Sour muttered, summoning his scythe.

"I'm going to have to ask him how that thing is made of candy later," Shovel said as they hung back.

"Yeah, that doesn't seem right at all," Shield agreed. "Kinda cool looking, though, in a completely ridiculous kind of way."

The two observed the battlefield while their escorts were occupied. They could spot Propeller, who was missing the forearm of the hand that didn't hold his weapon, in the distance, furiously duking it out with one of the spooks. This particular one's outfit was oddly distinct from the rest of the brothers, the number of differences on par with Living's costume, with a far more tattered and shorter cloak that failed to cover his upper body in the same way as the others. It also sported some rather ridiculous looking skulls.

The spook seemed to be laughing at how pathetic the man's attempts to harm him were. Or, at least, that's the impression they got from the distance they were at. There was definitely some form of mocking occurring, that much was certain. Propeller glanced to the side and spotted Shield and Shovel. He stopped to stab his weapon into the ground momentarily and quickly started signing with his one hand.

"I think he's calling us a couple of assholes," Shovel translated. "Or he may be saying 'I want pie.' I can't really tell."

Shield snorted. "How do you mix those up? I don't care how many days you've spent in a sign language class, that's just sad."

"Honestly? I don't know," Shovel replied. "I'm surprised at how offended he's being. It's not our fault we feel no loyalty to a guy we just met."

Shield nodded in agreement.

"Uh, guys!" Dorky yelled. "You might want to run now; we're getting a little overwhelmed here!"

"I can tell!" Shovel shouted back as he was suddenly grabbed by who they could only assume was one of Propeller's group. He angrily fought to escape the grip, but the man (or potentially woman) had heavy armor that completely negated the weak attacks.

Shield acted immediately, jumping at the warrior. The person seemed unimpressed by the young woman until Shield pulled off their helmet, revealing an alien-looking human, and bashed their skull in with it.

"Oh, irony," Shovel laughed as he was dropped. He studied the unconscious warrior. "Is that what the inhabitants of this world look like? No wonder they use helmets."

"Guys, run!" Sour commanded.

"Right, right, bye!" Shield yelled, grabbing Shovel's wrist and pulling him along.

"This place is so weird," Shovel commented as they dashed around the fighting.

"Yeah," Shield agreed. "I'm just glad they aren't trying to kill us."

"Ah, there you are," a voice from behind them said calmly. "Maybe you should pay more attention. If I hadn't said anything you wouldn't have even noticed you ran right past us."

Shovel and Shield stopped and whipped around, both letting out relieved sighs when they realized that floating there was just another spook. Wait, floating?

The two orphans stared wide-eyed at the spook's ability to levitate. This one seemed somewhat more identifiable than his brethren, although less so than the one that was fighting Propeller, featuring a cloak like Dorky and Sour, but had the same ornamental skulls. They got the impression that he was of significant more importance than the others, besides Propeller's opponent, mostly because of the costume difference, but also because there was an air of strictness that the others lacked.

"And you are?" Shovel asked. Shield sighed and gave up on the idea of elbowing him into changing his ways.

"Scary," the teen answered simply. He floated around them, lazily beckoning them to follow him. "Come, before my brothers die off."

"You don't have much faith in them, do you?" Shield asked as she did as requested.

"Quite the contrary, actually," Scary corrected. "I trust them far more than the rest of my warriors. However, I know that they cannot hold off the Gallivanters off forever."

"Is that what they're called?" Shovel questioned.

Scary looked to Shovel as though he was crazy. "Propeller took you in… and didn't tell you their group name?"

Shield nodded and piped up. "Basically. We're currently running under the assumption that you're the Crimson Cloaks, mostly because of the… well, crimson cloaks, but also because of what Propeller told us that you might attack. He also mentioned the techs might take a crack at it, but you don't seem so technically inclined that such a name would make sense."

"Excellent observation," Scary said sarcastically.

Shield rolled with it and said, "Thank you."

Scary rolled his eyes and gave up. "Anyway, you were almost made a part of the Green Gallivanters, mainly referred to as the Flirtatious Flyboys, because you may not know it, but Propeller is a massive ladies man. Not unlike Sexy, actually, only he's younger and not as good at it."

Nodding in partial understanding, Shovel asked, "So where'd the flyboy part come from?"

"He likes to fly," Scary said simply.

"Duh. How?" Shield questioned, not content with the answer.

"That… can't be explained, really," Scary admitted. "You'll have to wait and see. He'll probably do it tomorrow, in fact." The older teen suddenly kicked into leader mode and said, "Now then, let me lay down some ground rules. You tell me or one of my brothers if you cannot come on a specific day, got it?"

Surprised by the sudden shift in topic and tone, the two nodded.

"Good," Scary nodded contently. "Anything I say is law. Sexy is the only one who can override that law. You will obey my brothers' orders unless Sexy or I say otherwise. You will not interpret anyone else's word for law, and if you find anyone trying to get you to act in such a way, get one of my brothers and they will deal with it accordingly. I do not want to hear of any more stupid novice days mishaps."

Shield and Shovel once again nodded.

Continuing, Scary announced, "There will be no harassing of my other members. If I hear of any such behavior, you will not be banned, but I will personally make you wish you were never born."

Two pairs of eyebrows shot up at this threat, and there were once again two simultaneous nods, these slow and careful.

"Then we will get along just fine," Scary said, nonchalantly launching his scythe at some guy wielding a club 50 feet away that neither of the two orphans had noticed in any way.

"Holy shit on a stick," Shield breathed.

Scary seemed slightly confused by this terminology, but did not question it as his scythe came back to him akin to a boomerang.

"Wait, it can just come back to you like that?" Shovel questioned. "Why don't you use it for long range more often?"

"It's limited," Scary said. "It would be more of a hassle than anything if I tried to use it for long range. One slip up and suddenly I don't have a weapon until I respawn."

"Then why'd you risk throwing it?" Shield asked.

"Because I didn't want to deal with him, and there was just enough free space for it to travel unhindered."

Shield glanced at the war zone in confusion. They couldn't see the club warrior's disappearing body anymore, and they had only traveled somewhere around five to ten feet. There were simply too many moving masses to spot it or the dust partials it was turning into anymore. "Looks a little claustrophobic to me."

"If you ever pick up the scythe, we can show you how to do that with ease," Scary told them.

"What else you got?" Shovel questioned, seemingly not particularly attached to the idea of a scythe.

"Just about everything under the sun," Scary answered. "Swords, halberds, machetes… bombs. You name it, we got it, or can make it if we don't. Hell, you could make a weapon out of a wooden box. Wouldn't recommend it, of course, but the option is there."

"Why do I get the impression someone tried that?" Shield asked.

"Because they did," Scary said with an exasperated shake of the head.

"Of course," Shield laughed.

"Yeah. Didn't go well, of course," Scary told them. "Broke after the first hit. It did do a surprisingly high amount of damage, considering its material, though."

"How much is surprisingly high?" Shovel asked.

Scary thought for a second before answering. "Around… five percent of their health, I believe."

"How do you know that it was five percent of their body's overall capability to handle damage?" Shield asked.

Scary was silent for a moment. "He didn't tell you about that either?"

"Who, Propeller? Of course not, he didn't exactly get around to telling us much," Shovel said. "The end goal, the name of this world, and… the name of your group. That's about it."

Scary groaned. "But of course." He took a deep breath. "This world operates under different rules than ours. You have a certain amount of health. You can still be killed immediately if hit in a vital area, but if the attack is non-fatal, then you are merely weakened appropriately, although you will have far more strength left in you than if you lost a leg in real life."

"Hm, that's unique," Shovel commented.

"Only until you get used to it," Scary said. "Then it gets annoying when you get back to our world and you realize you can't heal that paper cut with a bit of watercress. Also potentially really bad if you don't die or heal the injuries you sustain in here. They will carry over into our world... Although we have yet to test a lost limb. No one is willing to see if we really lose that."

The two nodded before pausing in thought, both realizing at the same time, "Watercress?"

Scary, to their amusement, hung his head.

"Wow, I think we're breaking him," Shield muttered.

"Yeah, that's bad," Shovel said grimly.

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to give you a dedicated teacher," Scary groaned.

* * *

"Just give it up," Sexy muttered, more annoyed by the man's persistence than actually physically tired. "We have what we wanted from you. You're not getting them back."

Propeller growled. "I hate you spooks. How many times is this now? Three? Five?"

"If you count individual player, four, actually," Sexy informed him. "But yeah, three."

Propeller nodded. "Exactly. So stop doing it. You have you and your goddamn brothers; I don't think you need to steal my guys!"

Sexy raised an eyebrow. "We don't. We just don't want you to have them."

Propeller shook his head in annoyance. "Well now, fuck you too."

Sexy shrugged uncaringly. "Are you going to retreat, or do you need me to kill you and the rest of your troops before going out and stealing whatever we feel like from your base?"

Propeller narrowed his eyes. "You'd really sink that low?"

Sexy laughed. "Why do you think we sent Ninja and Chibi back?"

Propeller's face contorted in confusion in response to this, luckily masked by his helmet. His silence as he tried to figure it out probably gave it away, though.

"Well?" Sexy asked, impatiently drumming his fingers on his weapon. "You have nothing more to lose from retreating. I promise we won't attack you while you're running with your tails between your legs."

Propeller's eye twitched. Nevertheless, he swung around and started to walk away.

"Wise," Sexy said. He too swung around, raising his voice and calling out, "Cloaks, we're done here! Leave the idiots to their cleaning up."

All fighting ceased immediately. The Gallivanters grumbled angrily, but halted any more attacks, turning and meandering their way back to their fortress. The Cloaks waited until they were mostly gone before bursting into happy cheering.

Sexy, content, led his forces back to Scary.

"Brother!" He called out. "I'm leaving for the day!"

Scary paused in his conversation with their new fighters, glancing at his older sibling. He nodded.

Sexy nodded back and with what most tell him was an overdramatic flail, snapped his fingers and disappeared.

* * *

(Somewhere entirely different)

"You know what's incredibly random I've noticed lately?" Plague asked as he nonchalantly walked backwards along the side of the road.

Mona cocked her head to the side. "What's that?"

Plague looked around the empty streets. "Everyone just kinda… disappears around this time. I mean, you sometimes see the occasional person, but they're either an adult, or they're dead inside…"

Mona couldn't help but laugh at this. "Why is it taking you this long to point that out?"

"Because we're never out wandering," Plague answered. "Hell, we're only out here to get the off-brand of toothpaste." He waved about said item for emphasis.

"Only because you couldn't get it right the first time," Mona teased.

"Hush," Plague playfully demanded.

Mona briefly adopted a thoughtful expression as she pretended to think about his command. "Hm… nah. You know I'm just waiting for you to trip, right?"

"What? Why?" Plague asked, right before his foot hit a rock and he stumbled.

"Because that," Mona said, gently chuckling at his expense, but nevertheless glad that he managed to recover before falling on his ass.

"Okay, maybe you have a point," Plague conceded, turning around and walking the correct way.

"Well, what did you expect?" Mona asked.

Plague rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, all hail the Empress."

Mona grinned. "Damn straight."

Plague shook his head, but smiled with her regardless. "So, what're we going to blow up today?"

* * *

(Back somewhere relevant)

"So how's this 'respawn crystal' stuff work?" Shovel questioned.

Dorky frowned. "You want it ruined for you?"

Shovel shrugged. "I don't mind spoilers."

"We're only going to be waiting, what, five, ten more minutes? Why are you that eager?" Shield questioned.

"Because walking is boring!" Shovel exclaimed.

"Would you rather float?" Scary asked, seemingly ticked off.

Shovel blinked in surprise, not expecting the leader spook to get involved. "Sounds kinda fun, I guess."

Scary sighed and said, "I cannot believe I'm willing to waste my magic on this."

With a simple wave of an index finger, Shovel suddenly found himself levitating off the ground like his new captain, only now said person had dropped to the floor, walking with the rest of them.

"This is so cool," Shovel marveled. "How do I do this on my own?"

"You can't," Scary growled.

Shovel deflated. "Aww. But why?"

"Because it's a magic unique to me," Scary answered.

"But why do you get a unique magic?" Shovel asked indignantly.

"Most everyone has one," Dorky told them, hopping in front of the boy with a smile. He walked backwards to face the child while launching into a lecture.

"Oh boy," Sour muttered.

Dorky ignored this and just continued. "It takes some strange forms sometimes, though. Like Sour's. His takes the form of his scythe regenerating. He had it made out of candy, but that's not exactly stable, and is very edible, and he ended up eating most of it before it ever saw its first battle. Wow, was Chibi cross with him for that one. Later he tried to use some magic for whatever reason and ended up making his scythe reform. No one else could do it, and suddenly it became clear… Sour's so enamored with his candy that he can make it grow back after he's eaten it."

"…Impressive?" Shield muttered, unsure if she should actually be amazed by this.

"What's Living's?" Shovel answered.

Dorky fell silent. He looked to his brother. "That's a good question."

Living jumped in at this point. "I don't use a lot of magic, so I haven't discovered any ability in the area that is unique to me."

Shovel nodded thoughtfully before turning his attention back to Dorky. "And you?"

Sour snorted and answered for his brother, saying, "He can talk your ear off for literal hours nonstop."

Dorky shrugged. "You know, that's probably it. I'm still dabbling in the area. Didn't see much point in it for a while, but now I'm seeing some use for long range spells. My magic pool is pretty lame since I've been neglecting it, though."

"Right, don't entirely forget about magic then," Shield said. "Noted."

"It would be wise, yes," Dorky said with a nod.

"Is that your thing?" Shovel asked somewhat randomly.

"What's our thing?" Dorky questioned, turning back around to look at where the other boy was gazing. "Oh, that thing. Yes, that's our thing."

"What's your thing?" Shield asked.

"Here," Sour said, suddenly appearing and grabbing her at the waist, lifting her up so she was at the same eye level as Shovel.

"Oh, that's your thing," she breathed.

"Would you stop saying that?" Scary requested.

"Nah," Shovel said. "So, how'd you manage to get your thing?"

Dorky shrugged. "Our thing was here when we get here."

"I think our thing was built by the locals," Living said, deciding that he didn't want to be a stick in the mud and wanted in on the joke.

"I thought they said they had never seen our thing before," Sour said. He, at this point, had gotten tired of holding Shield and placed her on his shoulders, much to her amusement.

"So… no one knows where your thing came from?" Shield asked.

"Nope, our thing is apparently as old as the world," Living told them.

"You people are idiots," Scary groaned.

Dorky bowed. "Thank you!"

Scary lowered his head into the hand not currently tasked with keeping Shovel in the air.

* * *

"Wow, your thing is bigger on the inside than on the outside!" Shovel exclaimed.

Scary twitched in annoyance and unceremoniously dropped the boy on his ass.

"Aww, that was fun," Shovel whined as he jumped up and continued to follow the group. Most of the Cloaks wandered off to do whatever they had to do, but the spooks stuck together. Now in a guaranteed safe area, all but Sour, who probably didn't want to risk knocking over Shield, removed their helmets, allowing the world to see their faces again.

Scary sighed. "I regret everything."

Shield laughed. "As you should."

"Not too late to pawn them off on someone who has no use for them," Sour suggested, amused by his brother's pain.

"Yeah, they'd make terrible alchemists," Dorky added.

Shovel crossed his arms, somewhat offended. "Oh, thanks."

"It's true," Dorky shrugged.

"Plus, they have horribly high standards," Sour said. "You'd be there for a week, and they'd probably kick you out because you weren't getting anything."

"So they're a bunch of elitist assholes?" Shield guessed.

"Never thought about it like that," Sour admitted.

"Probably," Living answered.

"Techies aren't much better, though," Dorky said.

"Hell, we're probably considered elitist assholes," Sour snickered.

"There is no probably in that," Scary said.

"Do you have a more… humble group we can join then?" Shovel requested.

"Nope, we're all a bunch of jackasses," Sour informed them with an amused grin.

"Lovely," Shield muttered.

"Hey, look on the bright side, we're probably the second nicest group out there," Dorky said, happily nudging Shovel.

"Who's the first?" Shovel questioned.

"The flirts, who else?" Living answered.

Shield frowned. "Well, we can't exactly answer that; we don't know everyone."

"Well," Dorky said, preparing another explanation.

"Gods, no, shut up!" Sour groaned.

"You are a stick in the mud," Dorky told his brother.

Sour waved this off. "No, I'm just a little fed up with your constant ability to talk! Seriously, how do you not have to stop every hour to take a drink? You just keep on plowing through."

Dorky was unperturbed by this. "You know me." He looked back to Shield, hopping a couples steps back so he could look at her while walking without craning his neck upwards since she was still on Sour's shoulders. "So, we have us, the techies, and flirts, and the alchemists, right?"

Shield nodded before pausing. "Wait, who're the alchemists?"

"They specialize mostly in long range bombs," Scary said.

Dorky nodded in agreement. "Right. Their full name is the Advancing Alchemists. Anyone they have that can fight well at close range typically act as the bomb users' ingredient gatherers. Moving on... There is also the Royal Rulers, which consists of… King. And that's it."

Shovel snorted. "What?"

Living jumped in, saying, "No one wants to join since he's crazy, and he doesn't have the manpower to kidnap anyone. So he's a one man group. Not going well for him, either."

The two orphans couldn't help but snicker. "I kinda feel bad for him," Shield muttered.

Scary shook his head. "Don't. He's an ass."

"Really? He just seems nuts," Shield said.

"Wait 'til you meet him in here. Then say it," Living suggested.

"Anyway…" Dorky said, trying to get back on track. "The other group is the Digging Divers."

The newcomers were silent for a moment before cracking up laughing. "What?" Shovel questioned. "That doesn't make any sense!"

"It doesn't, does it?" Sour said thoughtfully, apparently having never given the name any serious consideration.

"Mole likes to dig and Treasure likes diving. All there is to it," Living explained.

This shut Shovel up immediately. "Wait, Mole's with Treasure?"

"Mole is Treasure's second in command," Scary said.

Shovel's eyes widened. "Oh shit. Propeller told me that Mole was basically the nicest guy to grace the planet. Why is he in with the town ruffian?"

"Because Treasure made an offer that he quite liked," Sour explained simply. "Mole got whatever it was that he wanted, and Treasure put a stop to the only guy in our world that could really stand up to him outside of here."

"Hm… what did he give him?" Shovel asked.

"We have no clue," Dorky admitted. "Guy won't tell us."

"Oh, now I want to know," Shield said.

"No, I forbid you to go looking into that," Scary commanded. "You'll just get us in trouble."

"I'm not even officially a part of the Cloaks, and I'm already getting restrictions placed on me," Shield said, somewhat surprised. "That's got to be a new record for stupid shit I've gotten myself into."

The six entered into a small side room.

"And this is a what now?" Shovel questioned, looking about the room. For some inexplicable reason it was colored top to bottom in black, and he couldn't help but wonder who was the idiot who made that design choice.

"The room housing the respawn crystals," Scary answered.

Shield frowned. "And is that why I don't see any respawn crystals? Or anything besides black?"

Shovel couldn't help it anymore. "Who's the dumbass?"

"That would be…" Dorky paused in his explanation. "Actually, who was that?"

"When Dorky doesn't know, you know you have an issue," Living sighed.

Scary frowned. "Well, that's… interesting. Apparently we need a new color. Lovely."

"No, it's actually kinda cool in a disorienting sort of way," Shovel said. "You should paint the whole place this!"

"No," Scary replied immediately.

Scary was apparently thoroughly fed up with the talking, and snapped his fingers.

In duel small, unimpressive flashes of light, two crystals appeared.

"Oh, there they are," Shovel commented.

"Take one," Scary told them.

Sour plopped Shield back onto the ground, rolling his shoulders in surprise at the sudden lack of weight.

Shovel looked to Shield, who returned the gaze. "Ready?"

"No, but what're ya gonna do?" Shield laughed, reaching for the crystal nearest to her. Shovel rushed to do the same.

* * *

 **In case anyone cares, the game Shield was playing is called Rubberband. I don't know how successful you'd be in finding it on the net. So... ask me if you want to know and can't find it, I guess?**

 **Also, if you find it weird they would just leave Propeller, keep in mind that A) they didn't have much of a choice, and B) they have no reason to feel a lot of loyalty to the Gallivanters. They've known Propeller for a very short time, and he wasn't exactly being very helpful in getting them to understand anything.**

 **I can't exactly tell what Living is using as a weapon in the canon, but lkcsi says it's a cutlass. I shall accept it, because otherwise that is thick ass fucking dagger.**

 **Can you tell I'm looking to Dark Souls for how these guys fight (only the stabbing weapons are used correctly in that universe, would you believe?) and the Sunny D? And Demon's Souls+Zero Punctuation for the watercress?**

 **The Empress Mona thing is a bit of an inside joke that I plan on writing a story about. If I do, then you all will hopefully understand. If not... then it's just something funny to show the pedestal Plague holds her on.**


	3. The All Consuming Mountain of Junk

**I meant to upload this some time ago, but then I got P5 (yay) and then I got bombarded with marking homework. So, here we are.**

 **Jason: Ah, it's alright. There's a reason I asked you. Because I can't come up with anything good! Lkc had trouble when I asked her as well. I've been thinking something like Battle Party. I don't know, that sounds weird, though (this coming from the child that knows her story as Hanburger!).  
Anyway, sorry about the franticness of it all. I'm just bad at fights. So, let's consider this a series-long exercise on the matter, 'k?  
Yeah, I haven't played it, actually. I have the 3DS version, which doesn't have a western release date as of this moment. Crimson Cloaks is just the color of Specter's cloak, though it wasn't necessarily a detail relating to SoT specifically. But Living's appearance is indeed from SoT, but that was revealed early on, so I don't feel bad about putting that in. Oh yes, they are all Specter-dear. All of them. Lkc and I have been making them for about half of the time we've known each other.  
Lazarus does kinda function with that, although I take the 'run out of life and you pop out in the real world' part from Code Lyoko. I didn't think about it having MMO type elements; they don't have levels, but they do have people running around defeating monsters because they need materials, so... I'll touch on that later. Probably 4th chapter. I'm only 1000 words into that right now.  
Wow, surprised someone took me up on that... this is getting long, so let me put that at the bottom, alright?  
Oh, Lkc? Uh, would you believe I had to ask her that as well? There isn't supposed to be a pronounceable word in there, as it turns out. In my mind, I generally call her Lkc (like elk without the e) because of Discord or by her real name, which you outta know by her tumblr is Claire.  
You know, have you ever thought about getting an account here? You're quite the dedicated child when it comes to communicating over reviews, but let's be real here, that shit's a right pain. It's fine if you don't, I'm just a little surprised you haven't yet.**

 **MeRciL3ss: Ah, thank you my dear.**

* * *

C3

"Getitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoff!" Shovel shouted hysterically, dancing about as though someone had dropped a cockroach down the back of his shirt.

"Calm down, Shovel," Sour said gently as Scary once again lowered his head into his hands, grumbling softly to himself, most likely on how he regretted allowing such a dork to become a part of his group. Not that a lot of people would blame him, he already had Dorky to contend with.

Shovel did not comply with this and continued to hop about in distress. Sour awkwardly reached out as though to grab the boy, but hesitated, likely unsure of if that would help matters in the slightest, or if he was going to get slapped for the action.

Scary sighed and looked up to Shield, who seemed highly uncomfortable as she stared at the back of her hand with a rather disturbed look on her face. "Do you know how to get him to shut it?"

"Just give him some time," Shield breathed, not daring to glance away from her hand as though doing so would cause her a great deal of pain.

"He's going to hurt himself," Living said, mildly concerned for the boy.

Shield finally tore her eyes away from her hand and shook her head in exasperation at all three spooks' lack of helpfulness. She approached her friend, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him for a short while. "Calmeth," she muttered upon finally stopping.

"How?!" Shovel yelled. "It's embedded in my skin!" He shivered as the mere thought of it sent chills down his spine.

"At least yours isn't stuck in your elbow," Dorky said. Shovel couldn't imagine that was actually where his was, but the way in which he said this made it seem like it was true nevertheless. This was confirmed when he removed his armor at the elbow and showed it to the child. Sure enough, seeming to flex with the skin itself, was a sanguine gem not unlike what was present on Shield's hand. "Do you know how awkward this is? Yours is in a very convenient spot. It's not particularly noticeable."

Shield nodded to this. "See? I mean, I'm going to be looking at mine from now on. You got it lucky, I'd say." She held up her right hand and showed him the jewel now present there for emphasis.

"It feels so weird, though," Shovel whined.

"Well, can't argue with you on that one," Shield muttered, clenching and unclenching her hand and watching the crystal move as though it were a part of her skin. "I guess I'm wearing gloves from now on, because I do not want to keep looking at this."

Shovel looked at Shield with sympathy, slowly realizing that the place that his respawn crystal had placed itself was far less irritating than some of the other options. Regardless, it felt wrong for it to be there, and so he reached behind him and rubbed the area, hoping it would somehow alleviate the feeling, if only for a short while, surprising himself when the respawn crystal simply fell out of the place it had attached itself to. He picked it up and then continued to rub the spot, of which was now just an indent. "Gods, why? That's not right."

Shield frowned and looked at Shovel's gem in curiosity and pulled at her flexible jewel, intrigued and a little disturbed when it simply popped out. "What?"

"Oh yeah, if you don't want someone else to get a hold of your crystal, you can take it out and put it somewhere safe," Dorky explained.

"But it came out so easily," Shield said, placing the crystal back where it belonged. She turned her hand upside down while asking, "Won't it fall out when I'm trying to do something?" She got her answer when it didn't move from its spot. Confused, she started shaking her hand, as though hoping that it would fall out so she knew that it obeyed physics like it should. When it didn't, she ever so gently rubbed its edge, which caused it to immediately fall out again.

Sour seemed somewhat confused by this for a moment before he realized what exactly she meant. "Hm? Oh, no. Don't worry; it'll only come out if you mess with it. It's not going to pop off if you just flail about or whatever."

"That's… good," Shovel said, hesitantly placing his crystal back where it belonged.

"Yes. Now then, come," Scary commanded, gesturing to them. "We must get you some armor and weapons."

"Brother dear!" A young voice happily called out from somewhere outside of the room. "We're got your shit! And Ninja's almost dead!"

Scary sighed, seemingly unimpressed with the interruption. "Okay, apparently that needs to wait." He left the room to greet the young boy that had called for him. The remaining five people followed him, three of them curious as to what their brothers managed to obtain and two of them simply wondering which of the spooks weren't a part of the raid.

At the entrance of the Cloak's fortress stood a mini spook, only about a third of Scary's height. Despite this, the way he held himself gave off an air of confidence that one would be hard-pressed to find otherwise in someone so small. Beside him sat who Shovel guessed was Ninja. Strangely, he did not have the same outfit as his brothers. Rather, it was the same costume as Sexy, only without the odd skulls his older sibling possessed. His cloak was ripped terribly, and he had holes in his armor. Above his head was a small bar, of which was faintly flashing red. He appeared to be glaring angrily at nothing under his helmet.

"Stupid techs set up a bunch of traps, and our asshole of a brother got me to walk into almost all of them. Someone kill me," Ninja growled.

"Not 'til you say please," the smaller spook demanded jokingly. "You also need to drop our spoils."

"Fine," Ninja growled, gently poking his shoulder.

A large lump of… stuff appeared and dropped onto his sibling's head. The accumulated weight of the stuff was enough to cause damage to the spook, and a small 126 and a health bar appeared over his head for a brief moment before it was also covered by the junk. Shovel raised an eyebrow in curiosity at how the thing indicating to others a person's remaining life could be covered. The tiny boy groaned.

Ninja seemed to chuckle at his sibling's pain. "Now _please_ kill me."

The small spook fought to free himself from the junk piled on top of him, but found this to be a painful task. He looked up to his other siblings, though it was difficult to tell that he did so because he was utterly buried. His muffled voice drifted up from the pile. "Yo, one of you want to help me?"

"Nah, you're on your own, Chibi," Dorky told him, an amused smile slowly forming on his face as he watching the boy desperately attempt to free himself.

"I hate you all, but Dorky, you're now at the top of the list," Chibi snarled with a surprising lack of malice.

Dorky smiled. "I love you too."

Chibi glared at Dorky for a couple seconds and continued his effort to free himself.

"Alright, alright, let's take pity on him," Sour said. He looked to Shovel and Shield. "This'll be perfect practice for you in using that inventory Dorky mentioned awhile ago. Go over and pick up some of that shit off of Chibi. Once you're holding something, press the X button to put it into your inventory." Upon seeing the confused looks on their faces, Sour cracked up laughing. "Okay, sorry, couldn't help it. Just will it away. You'll get it eventually."

Shovel and Shield complied and approached the pile, first pulling off some of the things off of Chibi, enough that he could pull himself away and swiftly slice off Ninja's head in revenge, letting out a vengeful chuckle as he did so. The two tuned out Scary asking for a status report of what they managed to acquire on whatever trip they were on and instead focused on picking up the various whathaveyous that they had gotten that was now dumped on the floor.

Gears, wrenches, armors, weapons… a boat. Nothing that made up the mountain of crap was of the natural world, but had nearly all of the man-made things you could think might have a vague possibility to have some utility within Lazarus.

Shield pulled out a dull shovel, waving it about. "Why would you ever need one of these in here?"

Shovel reached out and grabbed it, looking it over. It was dull and didn't appear that it would be useful even in the task that it was made to do. "Well, Scary mentioned you could have a box as a weapon. Just give it a sharp edge and it'll hurt you just like the rest, right?" Shield shrugged unhelpfully, so Shovel simply stashed the item in his inventory like the rest.

Several minutes passed, and Dorky and Sour joined in on the effort to clean up the mess when they noticed that the two children had barely made what could be loosely considered a dent in the mass.

Shovel heaved up a chair. "Whoa, why would you ever need one of these? I mean, this is a damn nice chair, but why?"

Chibi paused in his conversation with Living and said, "We thought it would be neat to have some new furniture here and there. It was free, so we didn't see a reason not to."

"Um, why was this free?" Shovel questioned slowly, looking at the chair in concern.

"Because the techies all but wiped themselves out when they attacked us over you," Dorky explained. "So, we just took as much of their shit as we could."

Shield nodded as she found a small safe. It was incredibly heavy and made a rattling noise that gave the indication there was a massive amount of coins stored within. "Yeah, we could kinda guess that last part…

"The techs are the ones who hold control over most of the technology in Lazarus," Living told them. "Unfortunately, this means we have rather unbalanced system going. Anyone they don't like at the moment won't have the option to trade with them, and thusly will quickly be left in the dust. I don't know what we did, but awhile ago, we managed to tick one of them off real bad, and they've hated us since. This is the first time we've gotten anything relatively up to date in a long time."

"Why are there weapons and armor then? Are they also the only blacksmiths?" Shovel questioned as he picked up a Flammenschwert. "Whoa, this is kinda… really weird. Neat, I suppose."

"No, they aren't the only ones," Dorky said. "They just have better and more recent tools to make all this junk, and thus have better equipment than us."

Shovel hummed in thought as he stored the flame sword and continued digging through the pile, next finding a helmet with numerous tiny spikes that made him think of blackberry vines. He stared at it in confusion as he tried to figure why you would ever want such a thing if you risked bringing yourself harm just trying to put it on in the morning.

"So what kinda weapon do you guys think you'll want?" Sour asked. This question was immediately forgotten about as he pulled out a pair of mechanical wings. They appeared to be rusting, and both were missing a couple of false feather. They were neglected and abandoned, but their purpose clear despite the fact that it appeared no one within the tech's group was willing to complete the project. "And suddenly I can see what they were experimenting with. Someone must be a fan of angels. Wonder why they abandoned it? Better design, maybe?"

"Whoa!" Shovel yelled, rushing to the spook's side to stare at the contraption with eyes widened in awe. "Dude, can I have that?"

"Might want to wait for someone to make a more finalized design," Shield suggested, hesitantly poking the right wing. "That makes it look like it's about to fall apart."

As if on cue, a couple metal feathers fell from the prototype. Shield flinched back, fearing that she was the one to cause the collapse.

"Yeah, might want to hold off on that one," Dorky agreed as he gathered up the fallen bits and stashed it with the rest of his pile of junk in his inventory while Sour rolled his eyes and handed off the wings to his brother so all the parts would be kept together. "We'll make sure you get one if we ever manage to finish it, though."

"Sweet!" Shovel grinned brightly.

"So, my question?" Sour asked.

"Oh, right." Shovel laughed lightly before pausing in thought. "I don't know, actually. I mean, we have basically infinite options here." He pulled up a ladle. "Like this." He swung it about. "I could literally have this as weapon."

"I would not recommend that," Dorky said without a second of hesitation.

"GO FOR IT!" Chibi yelled just as quickly.

"Chibi, don't encourage him," Living scolded.

Chibi shot his brother a dirty look and continued. "Come on, I want to see someone do that! No one likes unconventional weapons here, and I can't understand why!"

"That's because they never work," Living reminded the younger spook. "And if it matter so much to you, why don't you go try using one of those things?"

Chibi shrugged. "Well, yeah, that's why I want to see someone pull it off. And I don't use it because by the time that I realized that using odd weapons were cool, it was a little late. My muscle memory's mapped for my scythe now."

Shovel nodded in understand and looked back to the ladle, studying the utensil. "I think I'll use something sturdier than this if I go for a more… interesting choice. Why would you pick up a ladle anyway, though?"

Chibi once again shrugged. "Fuck if I know; that was Ninja's doing."

"Apparently Ninja thinks we need to cook something," Sour joked.

"Yeah, because we can make so much with watercress and Sunny D," Dorky laughed.

"You could… make a soup?" Shovel suggested. "Maybe? I don't know. Why do you even have Sunny D and watercress over here anyway?"

"Copying from Chibi now: Fuck if I know," Dorky replied.

"And there's another bad sign," Sour said.

"Okay then…" Shovel murmured.

Sour nodded in agreement. Moving on, he asked, "What about you, Shield?"

Shield continued to dig through the pile. She next pulled up a lever. Shovel idly wondered if it was attached to the ground when they stumbled across it. Most likely, it had been, seeing as there were wires sticking out the end. "I'm still thinking about it as well. I definitely don't want anything that would be too difficult to lug around. Not necessarily small, just light."

"As you get stronger, whatever you choose with certainly started to feel lighter, so that won't be too much of an issue unless you really like the idea of running around like you've got nothing on you right off the bat," Living said.

"I would say both of you should start with heavy armor," Sour suggested. "That way if you choose to change, you'll be getting lighter, not heavier. Lot easier to switch that way."

"In that case, we should also choose something heavy for a weapon, right?" Shovel questioned.

"Maybe not stick with it for nearly as long as you should the armor, but that doesn't sound like a bad idea," Chibi said.

"Kinda wish we had thought of that back when we started," Dorky sighed regretfully.

"That might have been beneficial, yeah," Sour agreed.

"Did you just start with light armor?" Shield asked.

Living nodded. "Yeah, we all did. But then we realized that it would be easier to not die if we didn't even have a need for a shield, so most of us tried it. Turned out that was a stupid idea."

"Heavy armor's really hot if it isn't, like, chainmail or something, but even then, it's not like we have a breeze here," Chibi complained. "The weather here is pretty much the same all the time, and this place doesn't actually have any sort of sun, but it's still hot as shit. Half of us nearly died of overheating. The other half actually did die! I believe three times each."

Living lightly thwapped his brother on the back of head. "Don't go discouraging them now!"

Chibi rubbed his head. "Hey, not nice!"

Shovel laughed. "Not discouraging me! I'm still going for it!"

The spooks seemed pleasantly surprised by this declaration, and Dorky clapped him on the back. "Now that is the motherfucking spirit."

"You guys don't have a whole lot of morale here, do you?" Shield questioned.

Chibi laughed bitterly. "Nope."

"You can get annoyed with being here pretty fucking easily," Living said.

Scary suddenly appeared, walking over the mini mountain. He stared at them for a brief moment before asking, "There're four of you and you're _still_ cleaning up?"

Sour paused for a second to look to his brothers that weren't part of the cleanup crew. "It would be faster if Living joined in."

"Living, get on it unless you want to take Shovel and Shield to get their armor and weapons," Scary commanded. "I want this done before it gets to be tomorrow, got it?" At Dorky's nod, he turned and walked away.

Living sighed. "Come on, then, guys. I'm not doing that."

"Shouldn't we finish this first, so we can drop it all off in one big heap?" Shovel asked.

"I actually think it would be better if we gave the blacksmiths some of it now, so they can start sorting some of it before the rest can come maybe an hour later," Chibi said. "Speaking of which, I need to drop off my crap."

Shield stood from where she had been kneeling by the now medium sized pile. "I'll go and then Shovel can go a bit later, how about that? Space it out a bit. Gives him more time to pick up crap and maybe find something that interests him."

Living shrugged. "If that's how you want to do it."

Shovel waved to Shield. "Good luck finding something good."

Shield laughed. "Same to you."

* * *

"You're fucking with me," Propeller growled, pacing about his office as though it might relieve some of his restlessness.

"Not my fault," Moon muttered, trying to not incur his boss' wrath.

Propeller heaved out a weary sigh. "I'm aware. But really? This much?"

"Techs have just been raided. They're down on supplies, and there are only around 20 of them currently alive and still present in Lazarus," Bow sighed. "Of course they're going to charge extra for supplies if you want now ASAP."

"But if we don't get more supplies soon, the divers are probably going to rush in! We can't handle them in close range!" Propeller snarled. "We can make the arrows if we have the raw materials, but those are in alchemist territory! This is the absolute worst situation, I swear!"

"Calm down," Moon advised. "You're going to hurt yourself, yelling as much as you are. It's doubtful that the robbers grabbed everything of use. The divers are probably going to go for the techs first if they're going to take advantage of the situation."

"And if they don't?" Propeller asked.

"Then… a treaty?" Bow suggested. "Mole will likely want Treasure to take the deal if it's clearly skewed in their favor. Of course, we'll lose a lot, but less than if they had been allowed to barge in and steal everything they thought looked good."

Propeller grit his teeth, but decided it was the best option. "Right. Let's write something up here while we wait to see who does what."

* * *

"Just choose something," Living said, clearly getting irritated at Shield's slow choosing of equipment. "You can experiment once you've tried something on, but just staring is worthless."

"I'm just looking for something that speaks to me," Shield replied. "Don't rush me."

With a somewhat amused but still annoyed look on his face, Living crossed his arms and said, "I'm rushing you, lady. I don't have all day. Neither do you. You can personalize whatever you get later."

"I know," Shield responded, reaching out and grabbing a random chest plate and looking it over.

Living sighed. "You're going to take a long time, aren't you?"

"Yep," Shield replied while staring at the armor she held.

* * *

(What is surely five hours later)

"Shovel!" Shield sang as she approached the boys. She seemed surprised as she stared at the junk pile, now a couple items littered on the ground rather than the mountain that she had left it as. "Fuck, you're only just now finishing? I mean, I was purposefully moving about as slowly as possible, and you're still… wow."

"That was intentional?" Living asked, twitching slightly as he looked at Shield incredulously.

Shovel groaned and stretched after willing away a globe of the earth of all things. "Yeah." He looked to his friend. "So, you get your-whoa."

Shield chuckled as she looked over her new armor, putting on the helmet and striking a pose for her friend to admire. It was a dull grey color and appeared to be on the lighter side of the heavy armor that was likely available to her. Still, it would definitely keep her safe. "Yep! It's a little stifling, I'll admit, but not deathly like Chibi made it seem. It's also a little uncomfortable here and there, but livable. Also a tad on the bland side in the looks department, but that's what paint is for, right? I'm thinking something with a bit of pop. Suggestions?"

Shovel made a small motion and Shield spun around to give him a view of the back. "Cool," he muttered. "Fits you pretty good, at least on the outside. Although, yeah, you do need some paint. Pop, huh? Green? Red?" He hesitated for a second before snickering and suggesting, "Yellow? Wait, I know! Hot pink." Shield tried to frown at him for the suggestion, but she started cracking up. Still, Shovel moved on before he landed himself in trouble. "Do you have a weapon yet?"

Shield giggled and spun back around and shook her head. "Nah, I annoyed Living too much."

"Very much so. And fucking better be cool," Living halfheartedly snarled. "I feel so dead inside. This is why I hate shopping."

"Then you'd better run away quickly," Dorky advised. "We're going to be finishing up here soon, and then someone's going to have to follow Shovel around while he looks for his shit."

"Yeah, I'm gone then," Living groaned. He glanced about. "Hey, where'd Chibi go? Didn't he come back here?"

"He went home," Sour answered, absentmindedly inspecting a tube, likely trying to deduce its purpose. Ultimately, he failed and put it away with a small, vaguely annoyed shake of the head. "He got tired of waiting for you once he returned, but wasn't willing to walk back, and apparently we proved to not be good enough company for him."

Living frowned. "Oh. Well, I don't see any reason to stay here anymore. I got hit a couple times back while fighting, so I shouldn't go hunting today. I'll lose more than I'll gain. Plus, it's just getting late."

Sour nodded in agreement to this final statement. "I know. We need to hurry it up. See you in a bit."

Living gave a small wave to his brothers and tapped the spot that Shovel figured was his respawn crystal, teleporting away in an instant.

Dorky stood from his spot. He looked to Shovel. "Are you ready? I think Sour can manage to get the rest of the stuff with little difficulty."

Shovel nodded. "Sure. Let's go."

"Oh sure, just leave me. Doesn't matter much to me, you know," Sour called out jokingly as they walked away.

* * *

Tinker grumbled as he rushed about the barren maze that was the Tinkering Technician's base, trying to figure out just what had been destroyed in their fight with the Cloaks, and what needed to be repaired immediately. Just earlier today, hardly more than an hour or two, it had been lively, but at the same time blissfully quiet, the perfect sort of environment for a person like him, who preferred to keep social interaction to an absolute minimum if it could be helped, to work in. Now… now it was lifeless, and what few of the techs remained were running from room to room desperately screaming at each other trying to determine what was still present after things started to disappear all over the place with seemingly no rhyme or rhythm to when it would vanish in accordance to the last thing that was taken. If it wasn't for the borderline ludicrous amount of noise no more than 30 of them could make when they were freaked out, Tinker would be complaining that they needed a few more recruits for the next time something like this happened, although he hoped that there would never be another occurrence of such an event.

Whoever it was that decided to take advantage of their weakness, they were an absolute idiot. Nearly every trap set up throughout the fortress had been triggered during the theft, which actually made it highly surprising that absolutely no one noticed what was going on until they were seemingly gone. The blood and lack of leftover materials from the projectile traps indicated that if they were still alive, they were in a world of hurt. It was highly unlikely they had enough consumables to heal such damage.

"My cards! My cards!" Some poor sap shouted. It sounded vaguely like Lucerne, but Tinker didn't know that he had cards on him, let alone cards that were worth running around in a panic over. Why did he have cards on him, though? He said that he had something incredibly important he had to do that would take all day anyway!

He glanced at Wolf's list of items that were still present. Yes, the problem seemed so big that when Tinker wasn't looking they apparently switched to looking for what hadn't been taken. That did not bode well. They had a couple smithing tools. That was good, at least. They could remake a lot of things with just that and some materials. Unfortunately, the count for that was looking rather lackluster, and Tinker was fairly sure that they had already finished going through most, if not all of the various storage areas. In addition to this, many of the products they had made but had yet to ship off, such as what they had managed thus far on the arrows and bolts that Propeller had ordered, were also unaccounted for.

"Shit, the safe's gone!" Someone's voice echoed throughout the halls as they yelled out to whoever was keeping track of the things that were left in the section.

It appeared that nothing they had lying around made of metal was safe. Or, more accurately, anything not nailed to the floor, which was, rather unfortunately, just about everything. Their flight prototype was gone; not much of a worry since it proved worthless anyway, but it was cool nonetheless to plenty of members. A couple keepsakes were gone, watches, necklaces… cards, apparently, that type of thing, right off the victim's person while they were distracted with something, but by the time they noticed it was gone, it was too late. Luckily, no idiot still had their wallet outside of their inventory, so no one would have to cancel any credit cards anytime soon.

"Wait, we had a ladle?" Tinker heard someone ask.

"I don't know why. I think the alchemists wanted it. I wasn't in on that project," was the reply. "But yeah, we did. And now it's gone."

Seriously, what were they taking these things for exactly? The safe, he got. That had money in it. Not all of their funds; most of it was kept in their leader's inventory. But cards? A ladle? A shovel? Why did they even have a shovel? It suddenly occurred to Tinker that they had some of the weirdest shit lying around that had no use within Lazarus, and he briefly wondered why he had never questioned it before. Perhaps because they were common in their world? "Yeah sure, let's go with that," he muttered to himself.

Disregarding the strangeness of the Tinkering Technicians stuff, he turned his thoughts back to the thief. There was no reason behind around half of what he stole, unless the robber had a penchant for unconventional weapons. But that most likely wasn't true, because it was proved time and again that no one in their right mind would dare seriously try to use them in a real fight. They were too flimsy. Anytime they got a request for an unusual item, it was almost immediately returned in a broken state, most of the time because the user got frustrated and ended up snapping it in half themselves.

There was a lazy knock on the front door that took a while to be acknowledged. Eventually, Moss realized what was going on and called out in an irritable tone, "Someone go get that!"

Tinker complied with the barked order and hastily made his way over to the front door, his wrench tightly clutched in his hand in case it was someone that would bring him harm. Of course it would be someone who would bring him harm. They were weak and ripe for attack. Why would no one try it?

Standing there, waiting with a surprising amount of calm patience, either not noticing or uncaring of the small boy's apprehension, was Treasure. Tinker froze on the spot, his eyes growing wide in fear as he threatened to start hyperventilating, not daring to move as he stared at the large warrior in front of him. Slowly, the boy who was unbelievably younger than Tinker turned his gaze downward until they made eye contact. Or, at least, Tinker thought it was eye contact. It was a little difficult to tell when he was wearing a welding mask and Treasure had a helmet that ensured that no one even knew where his eyes were located at.

"So," he said calmly, that ridiculous diver helmet of his muffling his words to an extent. "I hear you've been robbed."

…

What?

* * *

"Oh, you're kidding me, right?" The blacksmith groaned as Shovel unloaded his inventory in front of the woman. She had seemed happy for a short while upon seeing the new recruit, but that swiftly vanished as Dorky told him how to put down his stuff.

Shovel laughed gently, feeling bad for the poor girl. "Sorry. They got a lot of crap."

"I swear, it's like they stole the whole building," the woman grumbled as she reached into the pile and pulled out the shovel the two orphans had been discussing earlier. "Why would you even need this?!"

"That's basically what I said," Shield told the woman.

Shovel spotted something that might be good for a laugh and stuck his hand in the heap, pulling out the ladle a short moment later. "You might want to be saying that to this."

The shovel slipped from the blacksmith's hand as she stared blankly at the cooking utensil. "You're fucking with me," she stated. She reached forward and snatched the item from his hands as he shook his head, gazing at it as though looking at it hard enough would cause it to turn into something more useful.

"Nope, sorry Rapier, the techs had some weird shit over there. Chibi and Ninja probably just thought it would be funny to torment you," Dorky said, dropping his junk. "I mean, I have a fork. Oddly large one, but a fork nonetheless. Why would you seriously pick that up unless you are deliberately trying to tick someone off?"

"I saw, and took, a deck of cards," Shield added, pulling it out and waving it about.

"Why do you even need another deck?" Shovel asked, staring at the box the deck was being held in with confusion.

"I'm not entirely sure, but I think I'm missing my Queen of Diamonds," Shield answered, opening the container and flipping through the cards, ensuring most if not all of them were there. "And that way, you can finally have your own deck. Hopefully, anyway. Might be missing a few cards, but you could still play rubberband, so what does it matter."

"Why do you care about your Queen, then, if you can still play rubberband anyway? It's all you play. Also, I can't help but think that was a personal belonging, rather than just something they planned on using," Shovel said.

"Yeah, Chibi was probably the one who thought it would be funny to nick that," Dorky said.

"Why did Ninja have it then?" Shovel questioned.

Dorky shrugged. "They were probably raiding a room and Chibi saw it and yelled at Ninja to get it for him. Ninja probably didn't think about it nearly as much as you would think that he would and he simply grabbed it."

"Is there any more incoming?" The blacksmith asked, desperately attempting to sort through some of the piles.

There were already a couple of large heaps that were supposedly sorted, but at least to Shovel, it still looked like a bit of a mess in some places. Two of them were clearly reserved for armor and weapons, another had various metal whathaveyous that did not fall into either category, but a fourth also had metal things. A fifth had everything that wasn't metal. Or had metal, but not enough to be useful. No doubt it would be pawned off on someone would find some use out of it. Shovel could only guess that the third pile, where the shovel was tossed, was for things that could potentially be turned into weapons… if only anyone actually desired one. But no one ever needed one, apparently, so he didn't see a reason to even try separating it unless someone specifically asked for something. The fourth seemed to exist for items such as the ladle, useless in just about every sense except for the insane people that clearly did not exist in this world. A sixth appeared to be for all of the smithing equipment that the sneaky spooks had picked up.

Shovel felt terrible for the poor woman as he answered, "Yeah. Sour's gonna come up soon enough with the rest of it. He only has maybe a little more than Dorky, but that's still probably a whole lot, huh?"

"And suddenly I regret not trying to get more people into my profession," Rapier groaned, hanging her head for a moment in despair.

"At least you aren't regretting going into your profession," Shield said helpfully.

Rapier made an expression that read, 'Well, you got me there. She looked up hopefully at Shovel. "You willing to become a blacksmith, kid?"

Shovel laughed gently. "I would prefer not to. But if you want, I can help you out later, though."

Rapier brightened somewhat. "If you're willing to. Sure, come by and help me sort tomorrow then."

"Why would you be bothered?" Dorky questioned.

"Would you want to spend the rest of your week doing this?" Shovel asked in return, jabbing his thumb at Rapier as she sorted.

"No," Dorky replied, confused and not understanding where he was getting at.

"Exactly," Shovel said. "So, I want to help her get it done as fast as possible so she can get to the part that only the blacksmiths can do!"

"You are too nice," Sour said as he walked into the room. Judging from the look on Rapier's face, Shovel could only assume that she was utterly terrified to see how much stuff this spook had on him. The fear turned to dread as she saw the latest addition to her workload.

"Yo, Shield, you want to help me tomorrow?" Shovel asked, suddenly nervous as he too stared at the mass.

Shield hesitated for a second before giving up. "Sure. I still need a weapon, so I suppose I can't lose anything by spending time in the place where it's all stored for a while."

Shovel grinned widely as he turned back to Rapier. "Sweet, you've got two helping hands tomorrow, Rapier!"

Rapier let out a sigh of relief. "Thank the Gods for that. We have another smith here, but he's gone home for the day. Still, how could their inventory hold all of this? What a broken system."

This elected soft giggles from Shovel. "This whole place seems pretty broken."

"Not arguing with that one," Rapier said. She looked at the boy carefully. "You still need some armor, don't you?"

Shovel looked down at his body, realizing that, yes, he had neglected to do half of what he had intended to accomplish when going down the woman's room. "Yeah, I do."

Rapier looked thoughtful as she studied him, seeming to go over mental calculations as she muttered, "You're kinda small. Hm…"

"I know," Shovel said, shuffling his feet awkwardly, somewhat uncomfortable that she was pointing it out. He was aware of it and had long since accepted it, but that didn't make it any less weird when someone, especially a person that he hardly knew, decided it was worth pointing out.

"Oh, sorry," Rapier apologized, instantly realizing it was likely a sore spot. "Don't worry, it's nothing bad. Not here, anyway. Just a bit hard for outfitting you."

"Yeah, you'd be surprised at how being even slightly smaller than average can give you a huge advantage," Dorky said in an attempt at encouragement, gently patting him on the back. "It's really hard to hit a tiny, moving target, especially with something like an arrow or a bolt. Ask anyone who primarily uses a bow; people like you are the bane of their existence as hunter-types. Chibi's become an absolute terror on the battlefield using just that and his speed. Which is good, because his damage output is absolute shite."

Shovel perked up slightly at this.

Rapier resumed sizing him up upon noticing that he was in a better mood. "Unfortunately, I don't think I have any armor at the moment that can fit you. I mean, I commonly will alter fits so it's better for the wearer, like what I'm probably going to have to do for Shield over there, but sadly, you're this odd mix of tiny and average that won't really work with what I have on me. Maybe we'll find something in the pile I can change for you tomorrow. If not, you're going to be in debt for a while since I'll have to make a whole custom set. And even then, you may not stick with it."

"What, does he not get a discount for helping you out?" Sour asked. He didn't seem particularly angry at the thought. His tone was more on the lines of teasing her and silently calling her a terrible person.

Rapier shook her head, picking up on the attitude with ease. "No, no, of course he does. I won't be charging for any alterations to any armor or weapon he decides he likes from the pile, and he'll get a 50% discount if I have to make a custom suit. Likewise, Shield won't be in debt for her changes."

"Aww, thanks Rapier!" Shield said, smiling happily, mostly because he remembered her name.

Rapier smiled back. "Right, you're welcome, dear. Now, shouldn't you be getting home? A lot of time has passed by now."

Shovel frowned as it occurred to him that surely time must have been passing while they were locked away in that little side room of the Gallivanter's fortress. "Fuck, what time is it?"

"About five thirty," Sour said, glancing up at something to his left.

"How do you know; you don't have a clock," Shield pointed out.

"Have you not noticed the interface?" Dorky questioned, cocking his head to the side as he stared at Shield.

"Interface?" Shovel repeated, blinking in confusion. Dorky turned his bemused gaze to the other male now.

Sour sighed as he prepared to weather another one of Dorky's explanations before it occurred to him that he no longer had any commitment to staying. "Bye, bitches," he laughed as he quickly left the scene.

Dorky paused with his mouth open and a finger up, about to explain the crap out of this interface that neither of the new soon to be warriors knew about; staring at the spot Sour had been just a moment before. "Okay then, sure, just leave." Rolling his eyes, he looked back to Shovel and Shield. "Don't move your head, just your eyes. See that small little bar there?"

"Whoa, that's a thing?" Shovel asked, doing as requested and finding that there was indeed a small blue bar squirreled away in the corner of his vision. "Okay, first, how did that get there, and second, is there any way to make it larger?"

"Oh yeah, that's also a byproduct of the respawn crystal. It's your health!" Dorky laughed. "I forgot to point that out, sorry."

"Well, that shows how useful it is," Shield muttered, wholly unimpressed.

"Seriously, can't we make it bigger?" Shovel requested

"It'll get longer as you get stronger, don't worry," Dorky assured him.

"But it's just not noticeable. I'm going to get killed because I can't see my own health," Shovel complained. "Unless I just have the shortest healthbar this world has ever had the misfortune to see."

Dorky chuckled at this. "Nah, the guy that has the worst health would be either Cutie or Tinker. Neither of them have anything pass 300 health. I'm not sure of the specifics, though, so either could be the most pathetic."

"How did you pull those numbers out of your ass?" Shield questioned. "I don't see any way that you can have an actual proper number attached to the bar."

Shovel was the one to answer this time, feeling oddly smart as he proclaimed, "There are tiny numbers under your health!" Dorky nodded happily at this, seemingly glad that they were figuring it out.

Shield's eyes traveled upwards to see the easily missable part of this odd interface that now existed within their vision. She eventually managed to see and read it. "Huh, 540?"

Dorky's eyebrows shot up at this, appearing to be quite interested in this number that held little meaning to the one who muttered it. "That's not bad starting health, especially for a girl." Quickly, he realized that this had a negative meaning and backpedaled even when Shield was completely uncaring of the latter part of the statement. "Uh, I'm not trying to be sexist or anything; it's just a fact. Few females I've ever talked to come in here with more than 450 to start. Unless they play two or three sports every year, but then they're pushing 600. And, I don't know, you don't look like you play a lot of sports."

Shield smiled, waving off the quickly thrown together attempt to not appear offensive. "Oh, I'm not offended, don't worry. I guess I'm just more active than other girls. I'm surprised at how high strung you are about such a thing, though."

Dorky visibly relaxed, happily letting out a small sigh upon coming to what Shovel assumed was the conclusion that Shield was not a bomb he would have to carefully tiptoe his way around if he wanted to survive. "A lot of the uh…" Dorky paused for a moment, either hesitating or trying to come up with the best word to use. Eventually, he continued cautiously, "for lack of better term at the moment, I will let them be known as the pretty girls, find it rather insulting that boys who are typically even lazier than them naturally have higher health. Honestly, I don't see why they're complaining, because they generally have a naturally better speed, which is arguably the better option. Do you know how long I took to get my speed up to where it is? And even now, it's pretty subpar compared to my brothers, and can easily be surpassed by a month's worth of hard work from someone with good starting speed."

"But in that case, isn't heavy armor the stupidest option there is for me?" Shield questioned, looking down at her new equipment nervously.

Dorky shook his head. "Nonono, don't go thinking that. If you have a naturally higher than average health, I would say that you should try throwing on the best heavy armor there is and acting more as a damage absorber for the fragile but incredibly damaging units. Your speed will be going to waste, but I think you would make a good user of heavy armor, especially once you're used to it and can really start to move in it."

"460," Shovel interjected, staring up at his own number. "Is that good? What's the average?"

To their surprise, Dorky let out a somewhat aggravated sigh. "Ugh, averages for guys tend to vary a ton, a whole lot more than girls, because of the differences in their status with sports and other things that keep them fit. I suppose it makes sense, but it's unfair to people pursuing a less strenuous existence."

"Wow, you're right, that is unfair," Shield noted.

"This whole place doesn't seem fair," Shovel said, shrugging helplessly.

"Yeah, basically," Dorky sighed. "Anyway… Guys in two or more sports or just go to the gym every day or so start around 680 to 700, depending on how hard they push themselves, and one sport or gym only every once in a while sits around 650. People like me, who don't do jack shit with their lives, start at 500. Good thing you're small, I guess."

Shovel wilted somewhat. "Gods… why?"

"Sorry bud." Dorky gently pat his back. "But hey, you can probably get your damage output really high up there, even if it's not a naturally high number to begin with. That part's less difficult than trying to help your speed or health because it can be increased by your equipment's status. Don't worry. Besides, you got Shield with you. Scary'll probably let you guys team up once he's sure that you won't need constant supervision. She can make up for that easily until you get to the point where you can stand on your own."

"Are you guys going to leave anytime soon?" Rapier asked as she put away her tools for the day and stood from her seat.

"Ah crap," Dorky muttered, looking to the time. Shovel also started searching for the time and found it just above the healthbar. 5:35. Time to get out.

"Yeah, we need to go," Shield agreed with Shovel's unspoken thought as she too located the time.

"How do we do that?" Shovel asked dumbly.

Dorky gave them a boring, but luckily short explanation on the process and how it involved the respawn crystal and they were on their way. Right in the middle of disappearing from the world, something occurred to Shield and she yelled in a panic, "Wait, my armor!"

In a small flash of light, the two orphans appeared in an alley beside their new home.

Shovel looked around. "You know, it's funny, I never registered this was here until now… Shouldn't we only be able to teleport into places we're aware of?"

Shield didn't seem to mind too much. Rather, she was concerned with what she was going to do with her armor, until she realized that she was no longer wearing it. "I am so confused."

Shovel looked to his friend and nodded slowly. "Yeah, me too. There are so many things that just don't have any hope of making sense anymore."

Shield groaned. "Whatever, I don't think I care anymore." She looked at the back of her hand and let out a sigh of relief upon finding the gem that had attached itself to her was no longer present. However, there was a faint outline of it that gave off the impression she had drawn it on with a highlighter sometime earlier into the week. "Dammit."

Shovel looked at the mark. "Huh, interesting."

Shield halfheartedly tried to rub off the mark. She didn't seem particularly surprised that it refused to come off. "How am I supposed to explain this? I can't say I was making random marks on myself because I was bored. That explanation will get tired really quickly."

Shovel nodded in agreement. "Right, but let's deal with that once you're actually questioned, alright? Until then, just act like you did draw it on out of severe boredom."

"Right, it's as good a plan as any, I guess," Shield replied.

"Good, now that that's settled, let's go, I'm hungry." Shovel turned on his heel and happily walked out of the alley, strolling into their new residence with only the slightest nervousness that Polar would be mad at them for how late they stayed out.

"You're back early," Polar noted, not bothering to glance up from whatever he was reading, to Shovel's surprise.

"E-early?" Shovel questioned incredulously.

Polar looked up, appearing somewhat surprised at who was standing there. "Oh, it's you two. I thought you were some of the other kids. I don't know your habits, so I guessing by your reaction that you're later than what you used to return by back in your previous town. Good to see you getting out, though. Don't worry about getting back late or anything, as long as you're around or at least have checked in by eight, I won't mind anything."

Shovel blinked slowly in surprise. This man's demeanor did not match up with his looks and for a third time he found that he was unsure of how to act. Carefully, he nodded.

Polar returned the nod and looked back down at his paper. "I'll make dinner in about half an hour. Have fun."

Shovel looked to Shield, who stared back for a moment before shrugging and heading to her room. Shovel quickly followed her.

* * *

"T-that's all?!" Tinker yelled, utterly shocked. After several minutes of talking out by the front door, Tinker had seen no reason to not take the conversation somewhere more comfortable when Treasure proved non-hostile, and so now they were sitting in a set of chairs that somehow weren't gone. "I'm sorry; I don't have the authority to make such a call. All of the higher rank people are dead. B-but don't get me wrong, I'm not turning you down!"

Treasure stared at him, which made the boy all the more nervous.

Tinker started to ramble, trying to figure out why Treasure was doing what he was doing. "But why a recruit? That's a lot of your time and resources you're offering here. It seems like bad business practice for something so unequal, like how I'm know I'm digging my guild a grave here and I should probably shut my mouth before I say some I'll regret, shouldn't I?!"

Treasure sighed and explained, "One recruit can be worth a million arrows if trained properly. Two with a good team dynamic can decimate a battlefield at higher skill levels. Three, and you'd better start praying to any and all gods you believe in that you won't tick them off."

Tinker nodded slowly in understanding. "B-but new recruits are few and far between. We just got destroyed over the first ones to appear in… how long now? Months? A year?"

Treasure shook his head. "There are a lot out there. You just don't see it."

Tinker cocked his head to the side in confusion. "Why can't you get them yourself, then? Mole's a perfectly sweet guy that could probably convince a lot of people to follow him."

Treasure sighed, and Tinker couldn't figure out if it was because he was irritated at the tech, or irritated at the situation. "They don't like Mole. He's too nice to them."

"Impressive," Tinker muttered.

"Yes," Treasure droned. He stood. "I shall return tomorrow and we can agree then."

Without waiting for Tinker's confirmation on the matter, Treasure turned and left.

"I really hope you didn't just make a deal," Moss said as he approached his comrade.

Tinker laughed, unsure of how to deal with the sudden stress on his life. "I really hope I didn't either."

* * *

 **And there we are. Now, because of P5 and homework... the next chapters will not be coming quite as quickly as 2 & 3, alright?**

 **Anyway, Jason-rubberband. So, get a shuffled deck o' cards. Basic rules are place the first card on top down, and then draw the next card. If it is the same number or suit, place it on the top of the first. Repeat until that no longer applies, at which point make a new pile. If you get a card on top of the new pile with the same suit or # as the first pile, pick up the whole of the second and place it on top of the first.  
Things get interesting with 4 or more piles, now. Let's say you have a 2 club, 4 diamond, 6 club and you draw a 2 heart. Technically, that should just be a 4th pile and you'd move on. But it is the same # as the first one, and here is the final rule, you can jump forward two cards and can place that stack onto another pile as long as the original rules of # and suit apply. And it doesn't have to be right after you draw, either, it can happen at any point so long as you notice that is is an option.  
Thus, it is a game where you are constantly looking for jumps to make. I hope I was able to explain that well enough. It's not too complex, but I have seen someone having trouble with the jumping before. They would try to place the cards on the second pile while jumping two, and there was a lot of 'no, you can't do that.'**


	4. Thoroughly Lost

**Yo, I am back from the dead! For the moment, anyway. I have played SoT... and also some Bakugan. Uh, yeah, anyone else remember that? Leonidas from the video game was the fucking shit when I was a kid.**

 **Jason: Huh, I suppose you aren't wrong. And I think I'll keep it a cutlass just for some variety. And plus, for some reason, I would want to name the type of a sword, and I don't want to try and deal with that.**  
 **Don't you mean next Feb? Because this year's Feb has come and gone, buddy. It's alright, though. I don't blame you.**  
 **Ha, it's actually Dark Souls stuff. Sunny D is what the community calls Estus (a yellow colored drink), and Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee was going over Demon's Souls and called the healing item a 'punnet of watercress'.**  
 **I should hope you wouldn't reveal your real name over the internet! What is up with me and making friends with people from Asia, though? I have three friends I know from here-you (some untold place of wonder in Asia), Lkc (Philippines), and another person (Philippines). Wow.**  
 **I suppose, but I more threw the helmet in there as a reference to another Dark Souls thing, that being Kirk, the guy who can kill you by rolling. As for the weapons, I don't think I said no one used them, just that they generally were too flimsy or the user got frustrated and snapped it. I don't know, I'll explain Treasure's weapon choice later, how about that? As for Tinker, he's far more of a pacifist in this, so if he ever gets into a fight, his thought process is something along the lines of 'Shit, fight-weapon, weapon, weapon, wrench? Fuck.' Keep in mind that there are thousands of players, too, so 10-20 people with weird weapons isn't a whole lot.**

 **Edit: So, I've added days to this waist deep into making chapter 5 in order to keep track of what days the kids should be in school, but then I realized that I said in this chapter that it was Wednesday during one of the Plague & Mona sections. Whoops. I wasn't thinking hard enough about it at that time. So, oops. Now I'm realizing why you write your A/Ns in the same document rather than adding them after the fact. Because I had to copy them from my iPod, where that's still allowed, and then email it to myself. Yeah, wow.**

* * *

C4

"You know what occurred to me earlier?" Shovel asked after suppressing a yawn as he and Shield walked to school the morning after their wild adventure.

"Hm?" Shield responded, looking to him in curiosity.

"We were running around a battlefield, got gems embedded in our skin, and overall just had a crazy time… and I didn't manage to lose my backpack the whole time," Shovel told her with a small laugh. "I have no idea how I did that. You would anticipate that I would get annoyed at the weight, if nothing else."

"Do keep in mind I somehow did it as well. You don't hear me complaining." Shield reached behind him and grabbed his bag, lifting it for a moment. "Not that heavy."

Shovel shrugged as Shield dropped his backpack, letting out a small surprised grunt as the full weight came crashing back down on him. "Well, no, but I still feel like I should have gotten a massive ache in my shoulders from wearing it and running around with it on for several hours straight."

"True," Shield conceded. "Man, you know, I can't help but feel like yesterday was a dream. But I know that it wasn't. Partly because of the outline on my hand, and partly because my homework was done when I woke up this morning."

Shovel snickered and nodded. "I agree. But are you suggesting that you could seriously create a whole other world in your sleep?"

"Dreams are weird, man," Shield reminded him. "I told you about the weird underground-not-really-underground-because-it-was-in-a-grocery-store runner competition dream, right?"

"Well, you got me there," Shovel said.

"Yo, guys!" A voice called out.

Shovel and Shield stopped and looked behind them. It was one of the spooks running towards them.

"Yo…" Shovel muttered.

The spook stopped in front of them and grinned excitedly. "So, who won the battle? I wasn't there; I got killed too early."

"Uh, the Cloaks," Shield answered, staring at the boy in front of her, trying to figure out which one it was while also trying to not let it slip that she couldn't figure out who was talking to them.

"Right, who are you?" Shovel asked, giving Shield's thoughts a voice.

Shield groaned. "Every time…"

The spook started laughing. "Wimpy," he answered. "It's Wimpy. Maybe I should start wearing a nametag or something."

"That would be helpful, yes," Shovel said.

Wimpy grinned at them and resumed moving, watching as his new teammates followed along. "Sure, I'll try to find something unique to wear to give it away next time. So anyway, you're with us now?" The two nodded and his smile grew. "Great! I'm happy to hear that. Anyone you've made friends with yet?"

"Dorky and Sour are both really nice," Shovel answered.

"Living got irritated at me when I was choosing my armor," Shield snickered. "But I'm kinda fond of him."

"Ninja looks like he'd get annoyed at us easily," Shovel added.

"Chibi's adorable," Shield said.

"Scary's, well, scary," Shovel commented.

"And I think that's it." Shield looked to her near constant companion for confirmation, to which he nodded in agreement.

"So you've met most of them? That's good," Wimpy said.

"Who else is there?" Shield asked.

"Well, let's see…" Wimpy thought for a second before answering, "Banana, Sexy, Girly, Cutie, Kitty, and…" he hesitated, as though debating on whether he should add in another name or not, "actually, that's it."

Wimpy was not quite done with what he was saying but Shovel interjected. "How is your mother not dead?"

The older boy hesitated. "I-uh, hm… Honestly, I don't know. But… uh, some people have had around 50 kids, so our family's tiny in comparison." Rather awkwardly, he tried to get back on track, trying to remember approximately where he was going with his train of thought before being derailed. "Uh, anyway, so you've become nicely acquainted with a lot of my brothers so far. Good to know you're all getting along. I was worried because Dragon took ages to warm up to any of us. He tried to bash my skull in once, you know. Okay, maybe it was five times."

"Well, the name fits then, at least," Shield said.

Wimpy cocked his head to the side. "Huh, I never thought about that. Right you are. Anyway, don't go talking about… there if you think there might be any adults or people that aren't part of the game around. We don't want them ruining our fun."

"How would they ruin your fun?" Shield asked.

"Our," Wimpy corrected. "You're a part of this too. But, uh, they'll definitely take it away if they knew."

"They can't get in, though," Shovel pointed out.

"They almost did," Wimpy said. "Someone found out and convinced a player to bring them. They almost got a respawn crystal, and with that, full access to Lazarus. We had to revoke the player's crystal, and he still doesn't have it to this day."

"But they couldn't stop you from coming," Shield said. "Right? I'm confused."

"Wait, what happened to the guy that almost got it?" Shovel questioned before Wimpy would answer.

"If they got a hold of our respawn crystals, they could do anything," Wimpy replied to Shield first. "Block us, force us in, whatever. As for the guy who almost got in, Treasure bashed him on the back and it seemingly wiped his short term memory."

"But wait, so if someone else has your crystal means they can do whatever they want, then wouldn't it just be a game to see who could get the other's crystal first?" Shovel questioned. "Besides, they're the invaders, and they can't do anything about the regular inhabitants, right? There are a lot of holes in your logic here."

"It's for our own safety; that's all there is to it," Wimpy informed them.

"Okay," Shovel muttered. "But wait… who's not a part of the game? You said adults or people that aren't a part of the game, right? So, who're the people in the latter group?"

"Ah, wise," Wimpy noted, nodding happily at the point. "There's only a small chunk of people, but most of them are those delinquents that have rejected it. People that actually go to school on a regular basis…?" Wimpy started naming off a very short list. "Let's see, you got Whip, Griffin, Liger, Plague, Mona, Dog, there are probably more I'm forgetting about… oh, and strangely enough there are a couple Lazarus members that refuse to get involved with our meddling shit. Go figure, eh?"

"Really? Why wouldn't they join?" Shield asked.

"Lazarus or Earth?" Wimpy asked in return.

"Uh, how about a little bit of both," Shovel answered.

"Well, those in Lazarus really just don't give a shit about us and just want us to leave." Wimpy let out a small laugh as he was reminded of what they were supposed to be doing in the alternate world. "Of course, that's not happening anytime soon, so they just refuse to associate with us or anyone who does. I think they're slowly putting together an underground organization, but we can't be sure, and no one's entirely aware how that rumor got started in the first place."

"That was not a little bit," Shield commented.

"And our fellow earthlings?" Shovel asked.

"Uh, I think Liger, despite attending school like a good boy, is the leader of a gang and appropriately, he scares the shit out of all of us. Except Treasure, of course, but he got beat up upon trying, so ultimately we had to say nuts to that and leave him be. Griffin is a massive tattletale and we've been off and on searching for a way to figure out how to keep him quiet, poor Whip's been ill half her life, and Plague and Mona… oh boy, those two." Wimpy sighed.

Laughing gently, Shovel asked, "Just what kind of shit have they dragged you through?"

"The worst kind," Wimpy growled without any particular malice. "They always disappear as soon as school is out and we can't find them until the next day. We have had stakeouts, tried to less discreetly talk to them on the way home, hell, one of the techs somehow thought it was a good idea to do a B and E and got a radio inside Plague's house and we still can't figure out where they go. They only come back at around nine at night, and then they just sit around talking or, more often, quietly studying for their next stupid experiment. Or maybe that's just them passing a piece of paper back and worth talking about how they plan to escape us next while outwardly chatting about chemical things we hardly understand, if at all. They'll rudely tell anyone talking to them on the way home to fuck off after a while and threaten to harm anyone who doesn't. We're never sure if they're kidding, but we don't doubt they would, so we just obey. And when we're tailing them, they have a nasty habit of just rounding a corner and when we go to look, they'll just be gone. I think they've caught on by this point and have decided to actively reject whatever we're trying to give them."

"You can reject it?" Shovel asked, slightly peeved that rejection was an option this whole time. "But Propeller practically forced us in! He didn't even give us the slightest choice!"

"We aren't exactly trying to give them a choice either. And besides, he only pushed for you to come in so soon because I threatened him with war," Wimpy told them. "Although he probably could have gone about that better, I will agree to that one. Although, if I'm the one threatening you, you'd better be frightened."

"Why?" Shield asked.

"Because my name is very telling," Wimpy answered.

"Wimpy…" Shovel muttered, mulling over the term. "So, you're a whinny little bitch?"

Wimpy's jaw dropped as he stared at Shovel, vaguely looking like he wanted to cry.

"Uh, that was a joke, dude," Shovel said in concern.

"Nice job, you broke him," Shield said, gently punching Shovel on the arm. She waved her hand in Wimpy's face until he responded. "You alright?"

"Yes… No… Maybe," Wimpy replied, his voice a couple pitches higher than normal, giving him a pitiable quality that made Shovel feel bad.

"I really didn't mean to hurt you, you know," Shovel said. "I'm sorry."

Wimpy chuckled as he wiped away at the tears that had gathered in his eyes. "No, no, it's, uh, it's all good. I cry to a lot of things. Internally more often than externally, but I still cry."

"Why?" Shovel asked, genuinely concerned for the teen's health.

Wimpy shrugged helplessly. "Like I said, it's right there in my name. I'm a wimp."

"Why would your parents name you that?" Shield questioned, exasperation on her face.

"For the same reason Scary got his name; they likely opened a dictionary and pointed to a random word and just rolled with it," Wimpy answered.

"But it's literally your personality," Shovel said.

"Personality is a learned trait… right?" Wimpy replied. "It was probably a psychological effect."

"That's mean," Shield said. "They could have named you… I don't know, Stove? Anything's better than Wimpy!"

"Stove?" Shovel laughed.

"They have a child named Chibi; I think Stove wouldn't be too far a stretch," Shield replied.

"But most of their names are traits," Shovel pointed out. "That makes things difficult at best if they want to stick to the naming scheme."

Wimpy chuckled. "Well, then aren't you going to be saddened to find out that we have a younger brother named Choco."

Shovel stared blankly at his new teammate for a moment, getting the vague impression that he was withholding another example before letting out a sigh. "You're fucking with me. I mean, Choco? That's not even a… I'm so confused."

"As are we," Wimpy replied, absentmindedly patting Shovel's head.

"Why does everyone love patting me?" Shovel asked indigently, ducking away from the spook's hand.

"You're very pattable," Shield informed him, patting his shoulder to show it off.

Wimpy joined back in as Shovel complained, "Pattable is not even a word!"

The rest of the way to school was spent like this, even after Wimpy left.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Mona asked upon seeing the sight.

"That's what I'd like to know," Shovel replied wearily.

"It's fun. Try it," Shield suggested, smiling widely.

"No!" Shovel yelled quickly, trying to back away.

Mona looked to Plague, who returned the gaze for a short while before approaching the two. Shovel sighed as Plague started to pat him as well.

Shield looked to Mona with a grin. "Come on!"

Mona stared for a moment with an eyebrow raised in confusion. Plague gestured to her to join, and so she shrugged and just accepted it for what it was. She, at that point, also started to pat the poor boy.

"Do I want to ask?" Propeller asked when he arrived.

"Probably not," Plague answered.

"Join us. It is amusing," Mona said, beckoning with her free hand.

"No thanks, I'm good," Propeller responded slowly, eyeing the sight as though he could possibly figure out the meaning behind their actions given enough time and effort.

"Don't leave me," Shovel whined.

"Uh, that would mean joining in, I hope you know," Propeller told him.

"I meant help me!" Shovel yelled.

"Bah, you're beyond help," Shield informed him.

"This is… interesting," Black said as he appeared. "Is this some sort of initiation?"

"Sure, that's the word for it," Shovel stated as he again tried to shrug off the three.

"As amusing as this is, please stop," Magicist requested. Shovel was honestly surprised it took her this long to speak up, as she had been watching the scene from the moment they entered the classroom. "Class is going to start in a moment."

"Thank you," Shovel said as he was finally allowed to flee from the patting. He shivered. "I feel weird now…"

"Oh, you can get over it," Shield told him, patting his head. To the amusement of everyone watching, he reacted to this like a vampire that was exposed to the light.

"Whelp, he's traumatized," Plague said, giggling slightly as he watched.

"I almost feel bad," Mona commented. "Almost."

Magicist rolled her eyes at the display, although she failed to hide her grin. "Alright guys, take your seats. The bell has rung and it is time for me to attempt to teach you again."

"So, you guys ready?" Living asked as the final period of the day drew to a close.

"Yeah, sure," Shovel answered as he finished putting away his materials.

"Come, then," Living said, lazily beckoning them. "Onwards we go."

"To the land of amusement and interest!" Shovel sang happily.

"Where's that?" A female voice questioned suddenly.

Shovel yelped in surprise and spun around to look at the newcomer. "Who're you?!"

The woman stared at him blankly. "Really?"

"Really," Shovel answered, staring at her with the same expression.

At this point, Living stepped in. "Sorry, he's new here." He turned to Shovel and Shield. They saw something vaguely akin to annoyed fear on his face as he told them, "She's an important woman. Try not to get on her bad side, alright?"

"Sorry," Shovel apologized. "You just surprised me."

"Hm, yes. I suppose I shall accept your apology if you are new," the woman said boredly. "Anyway, answer my question."

"I-I'm going to show them the Gastronomer's food!" Living said hastily. It was clear that he was trying to not look nervous while making up crap on the spot. Unfortunately for him, his haste was making it all the more obvious. If the lady picked up on it, she didn't give any indication that she did.

"Ah, yes, he does have that special going this week, does he not?" The lady questioned. "Very well then, let me come along, and I'll pay."

Judging from Living's surprised expression, he was not anticipating this random act of kindness. "Uh, s-sure. H-how 'bout you and Shovel and Shield go now, because I need to tell one of my brothers something. I was going to have them accompany me while I did this since they don't know where to go, but now they have a guide." He laughed out of nervousness, probably realizing he was rambling.

The woman smiled in a way that Shovel interpreted as cruel. 'You're going to leave us?' He thought, staring at the lady's face.

"I'll catch up with you soon enough, don't worry," Living said, quickly dashing off out of the room.

Shovel slowly looked to Shield. 'What is going on?' He mouthed.

Shield shrugged helplessly.

His next question was, 'How are you so good at lip-reading?'

Again, Shield responded with a shrug.

"Banana!" Living yelled as he finally spotted one of his siblings.

Said spook paused midstep and looked behind him. "Yeah?"

"Enchantress has the kids!" Living hissed, watching his yellow jacket wearing brother tense slightly at the name.

"Did you warn them?" He asked quickly.

Living shook his head. "Didn't exactly have a chance with her standing there. We were about to head out. Dammit, why now; it's been ages since she entered this dump!" He angrily stamped his foot on the ground.

"Probably knew about the fresh meat," Banana suggested. "Listen, make sure they don't spill. Not exactly likely, they don't seem particularly stupid, but best to err on the side of caution for now. I'll talk to Scary and we'll see if we can't find a way to bust you out if you take too long to get to base, alright?"

Living nodded. "Yeah, I'll do that. Luckily, I'm getting a free meal out of it. She's letting us go to the Gastronomer's!"

"Oh, I feel bad for her wallet," Banana commented. "Go on, now. Don't lose them."

Living wasted not a second more, turning back around, dashing back the way he came.

"So, you're new here, are you?" The lady asked.

"Yeah," Shovel answered wearily. He wasn't sure what had caused Living's fear, or his annoyance, for that matter, but whatever it was, it was blatantly obvious it had something to do with the person walking beside him.

She glanced at them with suspicion. "Do you like it here?"

"It's certainly more exciting than I expected the middle of nowhere to be like," Shield responded this time.

"Agreed," Shovel seconded.

"Oh?" This one noise put Shovel on edge, and he suddenly felt like mouse backed into a corner by a hunger cat. One look at Shield told him that she felt much the same way. "And what exactly is so interesting?"

"Uh, t-the, um… well, the homework's a lot tougher than anything I got before," Shovel answered slowly.

"I don't think that counts as 'interesting' to your age group," the lady pointed out, her expression deadpan, making it obvious that his answer was not what she was looking for.

Shovel cracked up laughing. "It probably isn't, huh? Uh, huh, what have we been doing all this time?" He looked to Shield, hoping that she would have a better answer.

"I think when I said interesting, I meant it in a 'wow, I never expected to ever find anywhere this calm' sort of way," Shield chimed in. "Although we have met some… interesting characters here, so that might count."

The woman frowned, and Shovel guessed that they had successfully dodged her attack. She immediately launched into another one, however. "And who have you met?"

"Uh, haven't talked to him, but King," Shovel answered after going over the list of some of the more eccentric people he had seen around the school.

The lady nodded in acceptance of this, seemingly forgetting that she was attempting to get information out of them from the moment as she replied. "Yeah, I think he was dropped on the head as a baby. As his parents likely were."

"Guys, there you are! Geez, I thought I'd lost you!" Living yelled as he finally caught up to them. Without hesitation, he slung his arm over Shovel's shoulder, breathing heavily as he caught his breath. As soon as he succeeded in this task enough to talk again, he whispered, "You haven't told her anything about _there_ , right?"

"No," Shovel breathed.

"Good," Living replied, gently patting the other boy's shoulder.

"Again with the patting," Shovel complained, his voice now back at its normal volume.

Shield looked to him with a grin, and Shovel hid behind Living.

"Don't let her pat me," he whined.

"…And I'm confused," Living said.

"As we all are," the woman replied casually.

Living nodded and moved on. "So, Enchantress, what made you want to come to our school today?"

"What have I told you about that name of yours?" The lady snarled.

Living raised an eyebrow at her. "What else are we supposed to call you? Besides, Enchantress is not an inherently mean name. You just perceive it as such."

"You say it like it's an insult," Enchantress growled.

"That's because it is," Living muttered under his breath. To her face he said, "Well, maybe we wouldn't call you that if you didn't insist in not telling us kids your name."

"Why don't you do that?" Shield asked.

"Because you people would find out all sorts on info on me and suddenly I'm having to cancel my credit cards," Enchantress answered.

"That's happened before, hasn't it?" Shovel asked.

"Five times, in fact," Enchantress snarled.

"You know, your name has nothing to do with our pickpocketing skill," Living pointed out. "It just takes one distraction while another guy goes and grabs your wallet…" He made a little gesture like he was pulling an object up extremely carefully.

Amusingly, the woman started and grabbed her wallet, looking through it to ensure everything was still there while Living chuckled. Finding everything to still be in place, she sighed and slapped Living with it.

"I deserved that," he admitted, a silly grin on his face.

"Damn right you did," Enchantress growled.

"You did what?" Kiaken asked incredulously upon hearing the events that took place in his absence.

Tinker flinched. "I-I didn't agree to anything! I made it very clear I didn't have any authority in the matter. He said that he'd be back today to talk to you about it."

Kiaken sighed. "It's alright, Tink. I'm not mad. You did what you could. So… he's willing to do that for _that_?"

Tinker nodded slowly. "I kinda wanna say that we should get one in every 10 recruits or something, but frankly I think he'd kill us for that. Plus, I don't think there are 10 guys that we can drag in."

Kiaken nodded critically.

"He's here!" Moss called out.

Kiaken called out, "Let him in!" He looked to Tinker. "Do you want to come negotiate with me?"

"W-what?" Tinker stuttered, his eyes going wide.

"You don't have to, of course," Kiaken told him calmly.

"Why do you want me to?" Tinker asked.

"You know the situation better than I do," Kiaken answered with a small shrug. "Therefore, I feel you would be worthwhile in helping me assess the situation."

"I'm not a leader…" Tinker muttered, looking down to the floor. "I panic. And you know it."

"So you won't?" Kiaken asked, not particularly concerned.

Tinker thought about the matter until he saw Treasure approaching. Making a snap decision, he said, "Uh, f-fine, I'll go."

Kiaken looked mildly concerned for his underling, but let it go as he greeted Treasure. "I hear you have a deal for me."

Treasure nodded slowly. "I do."

Kiaken returned the nod. "Very well. Let us discuss this in my office, friend."

The three started walking, and Treasure turned his attention to the small boy following the two leaders.

"Why are you here?" He questioned simply.

Tinker tensed.

"I merely wish to see what he has to say on the matter," Kiaken informed the diver, successfully saving Tinker before he pass out from sheer fear.

"Very well," Treasure replied, immediately ignoring the older boy's presence.

Tinker chuckled nervously to himself.

"Are we there yet?" Shovel groaned. They had been walking somewhere around 10 minutes by this point, and it was starting to look like this trip would not be worth the free food, nor the pain.

"Almost," Living answered.

"This better be worth it," Shield commented.

"It is," Enchantress told them.

" _Now_ we are here," Living said, pointing to a small shop. It wasn't particularly fancy. In fact, it looked rather homely. A family owned business, Shovel assumed quickly.

"Fucking finally," Shovel muttered.

They entered the place, and a man looked up at them. "Ah, spook-boy, good morning. The usual?" Living nodded, and the man looked to Enchantress. "And you?"

"You should know what I want," she answered, crossing her arms.

The man turned to Shovel and Shield without another word or glance at Enchantress, although for just a moment he looked vaguely annoyed. His gaze immediately softened as he addressed the unfamiliar faces. "Ah, you're new here. What'll you have?"

"Just give them what I'm having," Living said, a tiny smirk slowly forming on his face as he subtly gestured in the direction of the lady accompanying them.

The man glanced at Enchantress and silently snickered. Enchantress's face contorted in confusion and pre-established annoyance. "Coming right up, friend. Should only take a minute."

"Thank you!" Living respectfully called out.

The four sat down at a table.

"I see your grades have been going up lately, Living," Enchantress commented.

"Yeah, parents have been getting on my ass about it," Living replied casually before he stopped and stared at the woman with narrowed eyes. "Why do you know that?"

"I happened to hear two of your teachers mention it," she said. "They seemed interested in what you were getting threatened with to cause such an increase in attempt."

Living frowned. "Bull," he whispered under his breath so low that no one heard him. "Is that so? I'm glad they're pleased."

Enchantress opened her mouth, but stopped when she saw the owner of the store approach, food in hand. "I didn't think he actually meant a minute."

"You don't come here often enough, do you?" Living asked.

"It's a happening spot for you kids, but it's rare for someone distinguished as me to eat here," she answered.

"And that's why he knows what you want," Living taunted.

"Hush," the woman ordered.

"Protection," Kiaken stated simply, "for recruits. That is all? For how long?"

"However long you need it," Treasure answered. "One recruit for however many weeks you need our services."

"It shouldn't take that long to get back on our feet," Tinker breathed. "It would be a complete waste of time for you."

Kiaken glanced at his underling before nodding. "He's right, you know. You want something else. A weapon, a tool, some way to tame monsters, something. What?"

"We need the recruits," Treasure answered simply. "Even one. People have been leaving us, and I've had to take away a lot of lower ranking player's crystals away."

"I think that's just a sign that your training isn't working right," Tinker muttered.

"Maybe not," Treasure growled, his voice clearly indicating that he would love to see the smaller boy do better while sticking to the group's signature style. "Point is, they scattered so quickly I couldn't wage war or anything to get compensation. I assume at least one's come here." Kiaken stiffened, immediately giving away that it was indeed the case. "But I won't bother you about that. Not now." Kiaken relaxed, and let out a tiny sigh of relief. "Anyway, so now I'm down a whole heck of a lot of guys with nothing to show for it."

"Well, in that case…" Kiaken thought for a moment before saying, "How about this? You guard for one week, and we appropriately give you the next possible recruit we find. And then we get one, you get one, and so on and so forth. There aren't that many people, and we might need your help at learning how to get good at forcing people into things, but you know. You get recruits, we get recruits, and the others don't get anything."

"You get one for every two we get," Treasure demanded.

Kiaken was silent for a moment, waiting for Tinker's reaction. Said boy did not understand the trust placed upon his judgment.

"There aren't enough for that to be a fair deal unless we get hit by a seriously heavy attack," he eventually said. "Why don't we make it so if that happens, then it's skewed heavily in your favor, three for one. Otherwise, it's a simple trade off."

Kiaken was surprised by this. "And you aren't higher up on the ladder because what now?"

"I'm not a good leader," Tinker answered shyly, very aware that he was effectively being praised.

"But you apparently are a great negotiator," Treasure pointed out.

"That's because I've been thinking about this since yesterday," the small boy replied tiredly.

Kiaken laughed gently. "Aww, poor Tinker. I'm sorry."

Tinker sighed. "Don't be. It's my own damn fault."

Kiaken nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, I know." He looked up to Treasure. "So, deal?" Kiaken held out his hand.

Treasure stared blankly at the outstretched appendage for a moment before reaching forward and grasping it with his own. "Fine. We begin today."

"Do you have your troops already with you?" Kiaken asked, eyebrows shooting up in surprise and concern.

"Yes," Treasure replied simply.

"So you were going to attack us if we didn't make a deal?" Tinker guessed, crossing his arms with his lips pulled back in an unseen snarl.

Treasure glanced at him. Although his helmet remained on his face, and thusly neither of the techs could see his expression, Tinker got the distinct impression that he was telling him to shut it before it landed them all in trouble. "Maybe. You have little on you currently, so it would be rather worthless, but I could have."

"Lovely," Tinker said sarcastically.

"Indeed," Treasure replied in the same tone.

Kiaken rolled his eyes and shook his head, saying, "Alright you two, break it up. We have things to do."

"Yes, yes," Tinker said, getting up from his chair. "I assume you don't need me anymore, so on the off chance you do, I'll be working."

"Be sure not to die!" Kiaken called out after him.

"Why tell him that?" Treasure asked, the last thing Tinker heard before the door shut behind him.

Living belched.

"Disgusting," Enchantress commented, a thoroughly unimpressed look on her face.

"Hey man, that's a compliment!" Living told her.

"Not in my world," the woman sighed.

Living smirked. "Well, your world is in for a huge shock when it finally comes into contact with the real world."

"Are you implying I'm an airhead with no sense of reality?" Enchantress snarled.

"Implying?" Living asked, acting as though surprised. "There is no implying to be found here."

Enchantress twitched angrily. A shit eating grin grew on Living's face. Shovel looked to Shield in concern.

"I'm outta here," the woman announced, standing and walking off.

"Oi, what about the bill, yeah?" Living growled, holding up the receipt.

"You can get it," Enchantress growled back.

"Motherfucking piece of shit!" Living cursed under his breath. He sighed and waited for the woman to be out the door before he started talking to his teammates. "In case you can't guess, I don't like her."

"I can kinda see why," Shield commented.

"Granted, you did call her an idiot," Shovel said.

"True," Living conceded. "But only because she'll get up in your business the first opportunity she gets. She's obsessed with finding out what we're going with our lives, but she never seems to quite know how to go about it, and while she has gotten frighteningly close sometimes, it usually just ends up being this big ball of idiocy that wastes everyone's time."

"Yeah, I can tell," Shield muttered, poking the remains of her half-untouched food. Both of the orphans had not known what to expect, but they were not anticipating a large chicken, a lovely side of assorted fruits, several dressings, and for it to not cost several pieces of 24 karat gold and a fine diamond at least.

"Yo, she didn't pay?" The cook asked as he made his way over to the table.

"Nah," Living muttered.

The man frowned as he started gathering up the plates. "Ah, figures. I'll pick up her end for ya, but you'll still be paying for yourself."

Living started laughing. "Uh, would you believe I came here with no money?"

The cook nodded in understanding. "I'll just put it on your tab then." He glanced to Shovel and Shield. "You guys want a box?"

"That would be nice…" Shovel muttered.

After the man got the remains of the dead birds stored away for later consumption, Living smiled simply provided the man a thumbs up as he stood. "Ready to go now? Scary'll want an update on the situation, and I would prefer not to take much longer than however long it takes to get that put in a fridge."

Shovel excitedly jumped up from his chair. "Yay, fun times!"

"You need to calm down," Shield told him. "At times like these, you remind me more of a dog than a human."

"Maybe I was a dog in a previous life," Shovel said indignantly.

Shield thought about this for a second before nodding in acceptance. "That would explain the optimism."

"So what would you have been, a cat?" Living asked.

Shield looked to him, playfully snarling, "Is that an insult?"

Living shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not… depends on your view."

"Then I'm taking it as a bad thing," Shield said.

"Pessimist," Shovel accused.

Shield swung around to stare at Shovel. "I am not!"

"Right," Shovel laughed.

Shield gently shoved her friend. "Oh, fuck off."

"Does anyone have a list of people not currently in Lazarus?" Kiaken asked as he walked out of his office, Treasure close behind.

Tinker looked around to everyone in the general vicinity. Not a single person said a word.

"You're fucking with me," Treasure sighed.

Now words were spoken. "Oh, like you're keeping track?"

Slowly, all heads turned towards the speaker, who happened to be Moss.

Moss glanced around him in confusion. "What?"

"You do realize who you just insulted… right?" Tinker asked.

Moss stared at Treasure for a moment before his eyes widened. "I do now."

Treasure sighed irritably. "Do I look like I care?"

"We can't tell," Wolf informed him. "Not with that helmet on."

Treasure shook his head. "Just get on it." He started wandering off, presumably in search of the exit.

"Uh, Tinker," Kiaken called out. "Can you show him the way to the door?"

Tinker nodded and dashed off to catch up to Treasure, who, despite walking slowly, had such long strides that would take ages just to catch up to the teen if he didn't sprint.

"Someone mind telling us what's going on?" Mace questioned.

"The divers are going to be assisting us for a week until we are back on our feet!" Kiaken announced. "In return, we are to round up at least one recruit for them."

"How are we supposed to do that?" Moss asked, distressed. "Sure, there are a lot of guys in town who don't know of Lazarus, but most of them are either going to tattle or they'd kill us before we could take them in!"

"We'll just have to deal," Kiaken said with a helpless shrug. "It'll be fine; we'll come up with something when we identify the who and the where."

"Right, sure, whatever man," Lucerne grumbled.

"I heard that and I'm not sure I appreciate it!" Kiaken yelled, watching Lucerne flinch.

"And that's the going ons," Living finished.

"Honestly, we shouldn't be surprised," Scary said, leaning back in his new chair.

"Well, no, we shouldn't be," Living agreed.

"Ignore it as per usual," Scary sighed. He looked to Shovel and Shield. "Just avoid her if possible, and don't tell her anything, got it?"

"We'd have done that even if you hadn't given us orders to," Shield informed their leader.

Scary nodded. "Good. Now go on." His gaze shifted to Shovel and he frowned. "Why do you still not have armor?"

"I'm small?" Shovel answered, shifting uncomfortably.

Scary looked at Shovel carefully. "Oh, right, yeah. Go on, then, deal with that." He waved them away.

Shovel and Shield exited the office. They looked around. "Apparently it's time to explore, because I have no fucking clue where we are," Shield said.

"Apparently indeed. Right or left first?" Shovel asked.

"I'd say…" Shield looked one way for a moment before looking the other way. "Left…"

"Righto!" Shovel said happily, marching on.

"You cut an artery?" The nurse asked, exasperated as she looked at the wound.

"And I need somewhere around one stitch, yeah," Mona replied with a rather unconcerned tone, squeezing the tiny injury in a poor attempt to slow the bleeding.

The nurse stared at her in confusion. "How?"

"Yo, Mona, Plague!" Pike called out as he entered the ER for his shift. "How are you; what did you do to yourselves today?" Mona held out her hand. "Again? How come you can't stitch it up yourselves?"

Mona shrugged. "Ran out of materials and have forgotten until now. How lucky is it we came right when you're arriving, huh?"

"Wait, what do you mean 'again'?!" The nurse yelled, suddenly very interested in the girl's plight.

"Are you new?" Plague asked, mildly concerned at the worry she showed.

"She's filling in for someone who's sick," Pike explained.

After thinking for a second, Plague guessed, "Morning Star?"

Pike nodded. "And there's even more proof you two need to be placed in nice, cozy rooms where there is nothing to hurt yourselves with."

Plague shook his head. "No, it's just because all of our stupid shit keeps happening on a Friday. I mean, who works in the ER on a Thursday is beyond me."

"That would be Knife," Mona said.

Plague snapped his fingers. "Ah, you're right!"

The nurse looked at the two in shock and a hint of horror while Pike chuckled.

"Can someone explain to me why you know the people here so well?" The nurse requested, an increasingly concerned look on her face as she tried to figure out a good reason that wasn't that they hurt themselves on a regular basis, despite the earlier banter indicating that to be true.

"Can someone explain to me why no one is stitching up the cut artery?" Mona shot back as she watched some of the blood on her hand drip to the floor. "Honestly, why would you ever get a job as an ER janitor? I don't understand."

"Maybe they have nothing better to do with their lives?" Plague suggested.

Mona rolled her eyes, an amused smile on her face. "Oh yes. 'Hm, let's see, my weekends are free, let's see the job listings. Oh, janitor at the local ER, where on a bad night it looks like something straight out of a horror film? Sounds perfect for me!' Yep, that's exactly the reaction I would have."

"Apparently you'd be surprised," Pike said. "You're the only ones coming on a weekly basis, so rarely does it get to the point of horror flick. There's more dust than blood to sweep up."

"But it's an ER; you know, the place you go when you're _dying_ ," Plague pointed out. "So, it's looked like that at least once, and there proves the whole point."

Pike shrugged. "Fair. Uh, come on, Mona; let's get that cut dealt with."

"Finally," Mona said, playfully elbowing the man.

"Where are your parents?!" The nurse shouted.

All three of the friends looked to her. "Working," they answered simultaneously.

The nurse stared at them blankly for a moment while she processed this. Finally, she came back to life with a jolt and yelled, "And… And! What, there are so many things wrong with this picture! Pike, what is wrong with you?!"

Pike, rather unconcerned, looked back to Mona's hand, completely ignoring the question directed at him. "So… how'd you do it this time?"

"Tripped," Mona muttered in a low voice, slightly embarrassed about the whole ordeal. "Didn't even have anything to do with an experiment this time. Just sliced my hand against the countertop."

"That is a sharp countertop," Pike commented.

Mona frowned. "You're telling me?"

Pike nodded. "Right, right."

"Why has no one called child services?!" The nurse shouted, distressed.

Plague sighed at the woman. "Alright, listen up." The nurse stared at him in confusion. "Despite what you seem to think, we fully accept the responsibility for what we are doing and we don't really give a shit, nor does anyone else. Child services are included in that list, believe it or not. So we advise you to take a deep breath… and hold it until you pass out."

The nurse opened her mouth and tried to figure out a proper retort, but couldn't seem to get past wanting to yell indignantly at the final sentence. While she was attempting to do that, the two children and the one doctor simply left.

"I don't think this is right," Shovel commented as they stumbled upon a garden. Upon seeing a door on the other side of the area, his sneaking suspicion that they had already encountered the place was confirmed.

"Yep, it's official," Shield said. "We are lost."

"Well, this is depressing," Shovel sighed as he turned around. "Uh, we turned right to get here, right?"

"I thought we found a passage to the left and that's why we're here," Shield said.

Shovel threw his head up and groaned in frustration. His annoyance swiftly changed to confusion, though. "Uh…"

Atop the ceiling stood, by some inexplicable means, a spook brother, not much larger than Chibi. Upon realizing he had been noticed, he dropped down the floor, scaring Shield, as she had not noticed the boy's presence. The boy had a rather ridiculous looking black cape that he swung around him in an equally ridiculous fashion, announcing to the two, "I am Batspook!"

Shovel stared at the boy, only mildly impressed. "Uh huh. Right, sure. Listen, we're lost, can you point us somewhere useful?"

"I know you're spies!" The young spook announced. "Leave now and maybe I won't tell my brothers!"

"We would," Shield said. "But we don't know where the exit is."

"Well then, you'd better be prepared to face the wrath of my siblings!" Suddenly, the spook jumped to the ceiling and took off, disappearing before the two lost children could follow.

"What does he have on his feet to stick to the ceiling like that? And I'm successfully confused…" Shovel said.

"You and me both," Shield replied.

"Uh, do we just wait, then?" Shovel questioned slowly, unsure of what to do.

Shield plopped down to the ground. "That would probably be the recommended action, yeah."

"So…" Tinker looked around to the small group of five that had been gathered. "You want us to do that? It's not a pressing concern right now."

"Best to get our debt out of the way as soon as physically possible," Kiaken explained.

Tinker shrugged, accepting this with ease. But something rubbed him the wrong way about the situation. "And you think it's a good idea for me to lead this effort because why now?"

Kiaken did not seem concerned nor surprised at Tinker's hesitance to take charge of the group. "Because you're turning out to be a good negotiator."

"But most of them have been offered a chance to come here already!" Tinker yelled. "What's negotiation going to do for us? 'Oh, I know you don't want to spend a lot of time in this other world and all, but we're going to make you anyway; here's a free t-shirt in trade.' Actually… that's going to get me killed, but I kinda wanna try that now."

"Sure, go for it," Dirk said.

Tinker shot the boy an unimpressed look. "I really hope that was joking."

Kiaken sighed. "Do not even start. Just go."

"You're going to regret choosing me for this," Tinker assured his leader as he teleported back to their world.

"Brother!" Batspook shouted as he burst into Scary's room. He stayed on the ceiling and had not come down, and it remained beyond the older sibling how exactly he could reach the doorknob when his twins were just learning that Bat was trying to raise an alarm. Also, apparently gravity had simply reversed, because he just jumped into the room and landed on the ceiling. The older brothers had always guessed that it was because of magic, but Bat wasn't supposed to use magic, especially not to the point that he would figure out his particular magic ability and he venomously denied using it whenever asked, making it difficult at best to figure out just what was going on with the boy. After a couple months, they simply gave up asking and learned to deal with it, allowing Bat to do as he pleased so long as he did not break any of the rules they set up.

"What is it?" Scary asked, completely unsurprised and not so much as glancing at the child.

"We have intruders," Bat announced as he dropped to the floor.

Scary paused for a moment. "Does one of them not have armor?"

Bat nodded. "Yes."

Scary sighed, lightly slapping himself on the forehead as he muttered, "They got lost, didn't they?"

"What's going on?" Maple asked as he and Pancake arrived.

Scary ignored them and told Bat, "Go get them and bring them to the armory, alright?"

"But-but intruders-" Bat protested.

"No, they are not intruders," Scary told him with an exasperated sigh. "They are just idiots with apparently no sense of direction."

Bat seemed somewhat confused by this.

"Come on," Pancake said, gently pulling his brother away. "Let's go. I wanna see them!"

"Yes." Bat jumped to the ceiling again, making his way back to the location in which he found the so called idiots with no direction sense.

"Hey, come back down here!" Maple complained. "Do you not understand how difficult it is to follow you like that? Hey, listen to me!"

"Why did Wimpy not mention Batspook, exactly?" Shovel asked suddenly.

Shield looked to him in confusion. "Did he not?"

Shovel shook his head. "No way. There was a Kitty, a Girly, a Banana, but I think I'd remember a Bat, and there was certainly no Bat in that list."

"He didn't mention me?!" An irritated voice came from somewhere above them.

"And he's back. Neat," Shovel commented as he stood, looking upwards to find the spook glaring at them angrily.

He dropped down. "How dare he!"

"Bat!" A child's voice rang out through the halls. "Where'd you go?"

Bat sighed. "By the gardens!" He shouted back. He turned back to Shovel and Shield. "So, idiots. You ready?"

Shovel looked to Shield and found that she understood what Bat meant just as much as him, that is to say not at all. "Uh, ready? For what?"

"To get down to where you should be," Bat answered.

"The armory?" Shield guessed, letting out a sigh of relief when the spook in black nodded. "Then, yeah, we are ready. We've been ready from the moment we got lost."

Bat nodded and spun around. "Then let us go!"

"There you are!" A voice yelled. Two spooks were suddenly at the end of the hallway, halfhearted glaring at Bat.

"And you are…?" Shovel questioned.

Neither of the brothers were particularly offended by this question and the one standing on the left answered, "I'm Pancake! And this is my identical twin, Maple!"

"Wow, Wimpy neglected a lot of his siblings," Shield commented.

Shovel approached Pancake, looking at him curiously. "You're… a little small to be here, aren't you?"

"Let me guess, you didn't question Chibi, though, right?" Bat asked.

"Well, his name is Chibi," Shield reminded them. "But no, we didn't. You just seem… younger."

"That's because we are," Maple said. "We're just allowed to be here because we have nothing better to do. We aren't allowed to fight or have armor or anything, so it's all good."

"Yeah, and apparently we now have the role of tour guide," Pancake added. "Because I have never seen anyone so lost that they ended up on the literal opposite end of the fortress."

"Why do you know what literal means?" Shovel asked. "That took me forever to figure out! And even now, I'm not sure I'm using it correctly."

"We have a very wise family; of course we're smart," Bat said rather smugly.

"True…" Shovel conceded. "Lucky bastards."

"Lucky?" Bat echoed back. "You think it's lucky to have 15 brothers?"

"Is that the number?" Shovel asked.

"He may be forgetting one or two, but most likely," Pancake said.

Shovel couldn't help it and cracked up laughing. "Oh, I feel so bad for you."

"No you don't," Shield playfully accused.

"Hush," Shovel commanded.

"You people are worthless!" Scary shouted as he suddenly appeared, causing all five people standing about to jump. "Honestly, I gave you one simple task!"

"It's not our fault you never gave us a map or a tour," Shield said indignantly.

Scary sighed. "I know, that was my fault. I meant I gave Bat a simple, but apparently very difficult to complete task."

"We're very talkative people!" Shovel yelled.

"Have you never heard of walking and talking?!" Scary shouted back.

"Why are you down here?" Shield asked, ignoring the question. "If you were going to come down here anyway, why didn't you just skip the potentially incompetent middleman and just lead us yourself?"

Scary groaned. "I got up because I realized needed more paper, and before you ask if I have some sort of secretary, no, I don't, it's been a long time since I last tried to get someone else to get it, because they are shockingly incompetent; I was not anticipating _this,_ when I got over here, I hope you realize." He angrily gestured to the corridor as a whole.

"What were you expecting?" Shovel asked.

"Honestly?" Scary paused. He realized something and hung his head. "This."

"Well, there you go!" Shield laughed.

Scary lightly smacked himself upside the head for his stupidity.

Tinker looked around upon arriving back in his own world. "Alright, where do we start? Ideas?" He turned around and looked to his group.

Everyone awkwardly shrugged, just as unsure of where what they considered the not cool kids hung out as their temporary leader.

Tinker sighed. "Ugh, fine. How about we split up, take note of anyone who we see that's eligible and meet up in an hour to discuss? That fine with everyone?"

"What if we don't know their names?" Dirk asked.

Tinker frowned. "Then get the best physical description you can, and uh… we'll go from there."

The group nodded slowly, clearly not confident in the plan.

Tinker shook his head. "This is why you don't hire me for this nonsense. Right then, if you don't have a better way of going about this, then pick a direction and head out! I'm moving to the north side."

"Wow, Tinker looks really nervous over there," Mona commented, peeking out from behind the corner cautiously. "What do you figure they're doing?"

"Beats me," Plague answered. "But whatever it is, I'm not sure I want to get involved."

"Seconded," Mona agreed.

The six teens that were unaware that they were being watched slowly dispersed, not looking like they had any real clue where they should be going. "Is it bad it worries me to see other people out and about at this time?"

"Considering you only noticed yesterday that nearly all of the town's student population fucked off from three-thirty to seven? I suppose that means you're becoming more observant, so no, I guess it isn't bad." She gently patted his head as a reward.

He lazily swat at the hand, listening to her growl in warning since that was the hand with the new stitch. "I feel like I should be insulted, but at the same time, I can't be."

"Of course! Would I ever do anything to actually hurt you?" Mona asked with a smile.

Plague smiled back gratefully at the rhetorical question. "Aww, really?"

"Dude, I'm pretty sure that guy claiming to be a psychic thinks we have a spiritual bond that has tied our physical bodies together." She was going to continue, but stopped when Plague snorted.

"I do not remember that," he said. "But it sounds equal parts ridiculous and amazing."

Mona flicked him. "You don't remember it because you were asleep, dingus. It was last month in first period. Guy bursts into the classroom, announces 'I am a psychic!', looks around the room, homes in on us and starts jabbering about our spiritual bond while the whole class just sits there in silence trying to figure out who the fuck this nutcase is and how he was let inside the school. Five minutes later, the police show up and drag him away. Did I never mention that to you? What kinda drugs was I on to forget to mention that?"

Plague cocked his head to the side as he thought. "Weren't you on some seriously powerful pain medication for that arm injury?"

Mona snapped in realization. "And that's why you were sleeping; you messed up your foot! Huh, good times. Wonder why I didn't think to sleep. Or why I decided to go to school."

"Maybe it was because you weren't thinking?" Plague suggested with a slight teasing edge to his voice.

Mona shook her head and thwacked him with a small smile. "No, you know me; I conk out when I'm not actively thinking about something. What the hell was so important to get through the drugs?"

"Hm… Then I got nothing." Plague shrugged helplessly, watching Mona's expression turn to mild distress.

"Oh, dammit, that is going to bug me," she grumbled.

"You can think about it on the way to the store," Plague told her, patting her on the back. "What do we need… thread, bandages, I'm pretty sure we're both out of disinfectant by now… and uh, do you have any more disposable gloves?"

"I'm on my last pair. I think the bigger question is whether or not we have enough money to pay for it." She pulled out her wallet and frowned. "Wow, and the award for best parents has to go to mine, because I was just reminded that they gave me for the week one dollar."

"You have enough food in the house," Plague reminded her. "Still, with what I've spent so far, it doesn't look like it would be safe to buy that just now, in case something important appears."

"So we can just bleed to death next time something goes wrong? Yeah, that's real smart right there," Mona said sarcastically.

Plague rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll go get some thread. But I don't think we have enough to buy anything else."

"We can live!" Mona assured him. "Now, to the store!"

Plague looked to his partner quizzically. "Why are you suddenly so happy?"

"Not a clue," she answered with a laugh.

Clouds are like family, individually, they're fine, together, they're fucking annoying.

* * *

 **Fun fact, it took me forever and a half to come up with Kiaken's name. It's the tech's leader, so I had to come up with something interesting, but I wasn't sure what I wanted. So I named him 'blank' and blacked out the term, copying and pasting it to wherever the name had to go until I came up with something. I think I'm happy with what I decided upon. A kiaken is a japanese dagger, by the way.**

 **So, here's a thought that occurred to me recently... in SoT, why wasn't Mona the miniboss of the Explodatorium? That would have been cool, right? We would have seen her fight, I have little doubt she wouldn't have some form of self defense, and plus we would have known where she was. As we have it, she just kinda pops up for the ending and that's it. I feel like that was a bit of a lost opportunity there. It's not like they're against girls fighting either, otherwise body swap wouldn't be a thing. So, what, they had already put in way too much effort as it was? I'd agree to that, it's practically its own thing, but still... was she asleep throughout the attack? Was it just a rough night of coming up with clone technology or something? Or was she at the village? Because there wasn't a cover that she should have had to uphold at the time, there wasn't a Potionarium to hide, right?**


	5. There Are No Words

**Bet you never expected this one, am I right? Then in the course of one day I write about 4,000 words... Oh boy, am I all kinds of fucked.**

 **I think I kinda changed my writing style writing the second half of this, which is all over the place, actually. Anyway, it kinda has this whole third person thought process thing going on. You'll see it when you see the _italics_.**

 **So, as you will soon notice, I added days! Oh boy... You see, the reason for that is... I thought** ** **about things like** _ **weekends**_ **. The thirdsection was written before Treasure getting Gold to help him. Things got confusing really fast after I realized I should take into account days off of school, and I didn't want to move the next section because I'd already had enough trouble figuring out that was Monday, and fuck moving things, so** **well, here's the product. Honestly, it makes sense; those kids need time in their own world, after all.****

 ** **Okay, so _important now EVERYONE, FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, READ THIS SHIT IF NOTHING ELSE :_ The order goes the day of the week, how many days have gone by since this story started (not real time, fuck that) and if it's a weekday, whether it is a day 1 or a day 2. The last one is more for my benefit than anything because you all don't have the schedule of the characters to keep in mind.****

 ** **Also, I laid out the groundwork for how death works before I wrote Plague's and Mona's sections, so... the explanation for what's going on is there, I swear.****

* * *

C5

"Why would anyone make a helmet that looks like a butterfly?" Bat groaned after he pulled out such an item from his pile.

"Why do you complain every time you pull something out of your pile?" Rapier shot back.

"It's not complaining, it's basic questioning," Bat grumbled.

"No, I think that's complaining," Pancake said.

"Shut up!" Bat yelled. "It's not my fault Scary's making me do this."

"I think you'll find it is," Maple laughed.

"You distracted me," Bat told his twins. "So it's your fault."

"You let yourself be distracted," Maple told him.

Bat chucked the helmet at his brother's head. "I did not!"

Shovel flinched as the metal came into contact with the boy's cranium. A solid 43 appeared above his head, much to Shovel's concern. He didn't know of Maple's defense, or, more importantly, his heath.

Rapier shot up out of her seat. "Okay, I've had quite enough of you!" She marched over and grabbed Bat by the cape. "You're getting a new, and hopefully worse, punishment from Scary!"

Bat crossed his arms. "As long as it's not this."

As Rapier dragged Bat out of the room, Shovel, Shield and Pancake scooted over to Maple.

"You alright?" Shield asked gently, noticing a tear in the boy's eye.

"Not particularly," the young spook replied honestly.

"Aww!" Pancake yelled, immediately trapping his twin in a hug.

Maple smiled and wiped away at the tear, hugging back. Both Shovel and Shield felt their hearts melt at the wonderful sight.

"Man, what was Bat's issue with sorting things?" Shovel asked after a moment.

"He is a messy person who hates chores and is normally calm," Pancake said. "Unfortunately, when he gets mad, it gets real bad real quick."

"Enough that he's willing to try and make his brother braindead?" Shield asked.

"That is a new one, I will admit," Pancake conceded with a frown.

"Wow, I didn't think that losing one helper meant losing them all," Rapier commented as she returned to find all progress had halted.

Shovel jumped back to his pile. "Oops, sorry!"

Rapier rolled her eyes and shrugged.

* * *

The tall leader frowned. "And what do I get out of this?"

"Come on, Gold, you gotta see the benefit in this," Treasure said.

"The reason you're guarding them to begin with is because they got in a skirmish with the Cloaks and ended up with little over a fraction of what they had before. I fail to see what I could get out of the deal," Gold snapped.

Treasure huffed. "I thought you were smart. I told you what deal we settled upon. I can easily give you a new recruit from the three I get. Sure, I'd still get two, but, hey, I'm offering you a recruit. Two, if the techies find that many people out there."

Gold huffed right back. "The likely chance the person you'll dump on me is worth anything to either of us is somewhere in the negatives."

Treasure huffed right back to Gold's huff. If anyone were to be listening, they would surely sigh in exasperation at the sudden huffing contest. "I'll give you the last person to come into my possession. I won't know who it will be; I just know that it will be a person. Or… whatever Lazarus inhabitants count as. I don't know if those wimps are willing to tussle with them, though."

Gold hummed in thought. Was it worth it…?

She sighed and shoved out her hand. "Fine. But I'm going to be nothing short of pissed if you give me a worthless idiot."

Treasure smirked and shook her hand. "Oh, please, if I'm going to mess with who you get, I'm not going to send you some muscle-brain, because I have use for them, but little for the smart idiots."

Gold nodded slowly in understanding. Makes sense. "I'll gather my troops, then."

Treasure shook his head. "No. Do it Monday. Half my troops are currently situated at the tech's place, and they aren't in on this. They'd wipe you out, or you'd wipe us out, and then I may end up in debt to the techs, and then what? Either I'd be down a lot of money, or I'd lose the extra recruits I'd be getting, and either way I'm in a bad position, and something tells you would be pretty angry if we fucked you up the ass."

Gold sighed. "Yeah, true. And while it would be funny to fuck you over, that would surely end badly for all involved. So, Monday. Unless I otherwise say so."

Treasure grinned an unseen and truly evil grin. "Good…"

* * *

(Saturday) (The fifth day for those who are curious, and yes, I did do those mental calculations upon realizing the weekend had to exist somewhere)

"Uh, we don't go on the weekends?" Shield asked, utterly befuddled.

"Yep. It's your time. Wander around town, have fun; do whatever you see fit, so long as it doesn't involve harming others," Dorky explained, before looking back to his book.

Shield look to Shovel, and found a pleasantly surprised look on his face. "I can get down with that."

"But… what can we do?" Shield asked. "We know one restaurant. That's all of our interaction with the town."

Shovel happily grabbed Shield's hand. "Then we'll explore!"

"Huh, that feels like it's a new concept," Shield commented. Dorky gave the girl a befuddled and somewhat concerned look in response, which she missed as she was dragged away by Shovel.

* * *

(Skipping Sunday for fun) (Monday) (The sixth day) (Day 2)

"What did you do to your hand?" Shield asked upon seeing Mona's bandaged hand.

The other girl turned away, and Shield could have sworn she saw the beginnings of an embarrassed blush on her face. "I will not be talking about that."

Plague giggled and said, "She tripped."

Mona whirled around to glare at her partner. "I will shiv you!"

Plague was not concerned. In fact, he looked rather smug as he replied, "After what you said yesterday? I doubt it, honey."

"I will get you, and that is a promise," Mona snarled slowly. "May not be today, may not be tomorrow. But I will get you. And you will regret your actions."

Plague took a step back in fear.

That was the sole interesting thing to happen that day.

* * *

(Tuesday) (Day seven) (Day 1)

"Anything to report?" Tinker asked his group. He was unfortunately met with shakes of the head.

"No one's not dangerous," Dirk complained.

Tinker sighed. He knew of two people who were not dangerous, but he was holding off on them. They were inseparable, and would throw a fit if they were forced apart. Treasure had agreed sometime after Tinker had left the room that he would allow the techs the first recruit, given that they were the ones looking for the new members.

He had to be careful. He didn't want to deal with the two constantly screaming at him, or anyone else, for that matter. Plus, he'd just feel bad about separating them, seeing as they had no other friends. He had to find someone else, and then drag in one of them, wait for a day, take in the one they intended to give to the divers, and then finally drag in the other.

It was long and complicated, but he knew that he had to try. He'd seen the strain on friendships being on separate teams caused. He knew far too well.

He frowned. Who could be placed on the divers' team, then?

Wait…

A smile spread across his face as he realized what he could do.

"I know who," he announced. "I'll go see if I can get him. You guys keep looking."

Tinker's group exchanged confused glances, but followed his instructions.

* * *

"Plague! Oh, thank the gods; I thought I wouldn't be able to find you!" Tinker yelled as he dashed up to the two.

He swore he heard one of them sigh before they turned around. "What is it, Tink?"

"Don't sound so unhappy," Tinker joked. "But…" He put his arm around Plague's neck, noting the groan that escaped the boy's lips. "Listen, I need your help with something… guy thing. We can't involve Mona in it."

Plague's eyes narrowed. "What are you… no, whatever it is, no. You don't want me around for guy things anyway. Why me?"

Tinker started spouting what first came to mind. He had a lie in mind before he approached them, but it had already fled from his mind. "I need your expertise."

Plague was not convinced by this. "What expertise? Do you really need chemicals…?" He seemed to get an interesting thought in his head and muttered, "Wait, no, hang on, chemicals plus 'guy thing' is starting to sound… really, really wrong to me."

Okay, this was getting really out of hand. Tinker wasn't entirely sure as to what he was referring to, but he wasn't sure that he wanted to know. "Oh boy, no! Geez, get your mind out of the gutter, would you? Gods. Listen, it'll only take a short while, okay? It shouldn't take all day, so you can keep doing whatever you want to with Mona, alright?"

Plague groaned, growling out, "Fine. But if it takes all day I'm going to make you regret it." He pushed away the other boy and looked to Mona. "Sorry. But Tink will probably keep bugging me about whatever this is. Head on home, I'll come by when I'm done." He shot a glare at Tinker. "If I get done in time."

Mona seemed perplexed by this, but shrugged helplessly and waved a goodbye.

Plague crossed his arms. "Alright, where we going?"

"Just over here, don't worry," Tinker gently assured him.

This did not help Plague's skepticism, but he rolled his eyes and followed the other boy.

Tinker took a deep breath. He was seriously doing this. Maybe he should have talked to Kiaken about it first. Too late now.

This was why he hated making snap decisions. But he didn't want anyone else to act before he could.

This better work out.

"You seem kinda nervous," Plague noted. "What are you planning on doing, try to become a robber? No offense, but you're an idiot if that's the case; you outta know by now that I'm broke as hell."

"No, no, everything's fine, I'm not going to hurt you," Tinker said, assuring himself more than the other boy this time.

Plague made an unconvinced noise but shook his head helplessly.

As discreetly as possible, Tinker activated his power, pulling the two of them into Lazarus, directly in the center of the tech's fortress.

Plague immediately screamed and started looking around in a desperate attempt to return to what was familiar. Luckily, Kiaken was out of the office for the moment, and Tinker waved him down as he attempted to calm the panicking boy. "Calm down, Plague, it's alright, everything's fine."

Plague was not satisfied by this. "Then where the fuck are we?!"

"It's complicated," Kiaken said as he got closer. He looked to Tinker. "Where's the rest of your group?"

Tinker shrugged. "They're looking into others. I didn't want to separate him and his friend, so I've brought just him in for now. After we give him his respawn crystal, we give the divers Pickaxe and then take her in. I know, it's complicated, but I hated losing my friendship with Seahorse, and I don't want to do that to them." He frowned as he watched Plague on the verge of a breakdown. He completely missed what had been said, not that he would have the context necessary to understand.

Kiaken nodded in understanding. "Very well then. Let's go get him registered then."

The leader gently pushed Plague forward. Stunned as he was, he did not resist, accepting a respawn crystal without even realizing it.

Tinker smiled happily. "Great, I'll go get Pickaxe then! And I promised Mona I would return Plague before the end of the day, so I'll do that while I'm at it."

Kiaken nodded in agreement and opened his mouth to say something when there was a sudden boom from the west wing.

Tinker's eyes went wide. "No," he said simply.

There went that plan. Of course he had to be knee deep into it. It couldn't have happened before they gave Plague the crystal so Tinker could better figure out who else there was because someone in the divers was going to point out that Mona had to be dragged in eventually and he had to find two other people now to satisfy the agreement and _why were there so few shut-ins in this town?!_

"Okay, new plan!" He announced. He pointed to Plague, who looked positively terrified by this new development. "Plague, do not say a word about this to anyone. If anyone finds out you came here, everything goes to shit, you hear me?"

Plague did not respond until Tinker slapped him and repeated, at which point he nodded numbly.

Tinker shrugged. Good enough for now. He killed the boy before remembering that was a stupid idea. On the bright side, Plague had not been facing his murderer, and would probably wake up with a massive headache and no idea what the hell just happened.

"Where was he set to go?" Kiaken asked.

Tinker hesitated for a moment before spouting out his best guess for the other boy's fate. "Most likely he'll pop right back to where I took him in with a pain in his head. I hope, anyway.

Kiaken did not look impressed, but shooed his underling along towards the battle anyway.

* * *

Mona couldn't help it. It was too interesting not to try and take a glance at what Tinker had in mind for Plague. And besides, what if it was dangerous? She couldn't risk having her partner get wounded, now could she?

Now, it was all a matter of tracking them…

She turned down the corner they had gone by and-

"Plaguey!" The nickname slipped out before she could consider if there was anyone else around to hear it. It's just that he was lying on the ground, seemingly passed out, and yes she was panicking, wouldn't you?

She rushed to his side, shaking him awake.

"Where's Tinker?" She yelled when his eyes opened. "I'll murder him!"

Plague curled in on himself, whimpering, "Please stop yelling."

Mona went quiet, listening to him as he took a couple deep breaths.

When he seemed slightly more okay than before, she questioned softly, "What happened to you?"

Plague hesitated, and ended up answering, "I don't really know. Can I go home? I think I need a nap."

Mona frowned, confused and concerned. As much as she wanted to hunt down and break Tinker in half for doing whatever it is that he did to her partner, her best friend came first.

She helped him to his feet, whispering, "Yes, you may."

Slowly and carefully, she guided her partner back to his house, tucking him into bed and ultimately crashing on the couch in case he needed something.

* * *

(Wednesday) (Day eight) (Day 2)

"So, I hear you took Plague in yesterday," Treasure noted.

"What?!" Tinker asked, a small stutter working its way into his voice. "Where'd you hear that?"

Treasure shot the older boy an unimpressed look. "I had 20 guards in your fortress yesterday, what do you think?"

"Oh, so that's why we were decimated by the alchemists yesterday," Tinker growled.

"Watch your tongue," the leader of the divers growled back. "We have our own business we need to attend to; we can't give you all of what we have. Besides, did you really expect to get attacked when you have nothing to steal and they have nothing to gain?

Tinker frowned and crossed his arms. "Yeah. And I don't like how that doesn't add up. Why are you talking to me about this anyway?"

Treasure glared at the boy. "Because why didn't you take in Mona as well? Whatever happened to our agreement?"

Seeing no reason to lie and potentially make things even worse, Tinker answered honestly. "Because I don't want to separate them. They work well together, so it would prove detrimental to force them to work separately. I was going to give you Pickaxe, given that they're all asocial shut-ins, but now we've been attacked. I'll find more people, I swear." He left out that he was honestly unsure of how to keep what remained of his plan intact.

Unfazed by this, Treasure informed him. "If you haven't found them by one hour after school has ended tomorrow, I'm taking her for myself."

Tinker's jaw dropped in shock. "W-what? No, you can't do that!"

Treasure laughed. And not out of joyfulness. Rather, it was cruel and frightening. "And why can't I? You were just a side negotiator anyway."

While Tinker was trying to come up with a proper retort, Treasure turned and walked away.

* * *

(Thursday) (The ninth day for those who are interested) (Day 1)

"And there we go!" Rapier said happily as she finished messing with Shovel's new armor.

"I still can't say this purple is doing it for me," said boy muttered as he twisted this way and that to ensure it was comfortable.

Rapier stroked her chin in thought. "Stay right there; I think I have a solution." She went behind him, and he turned to watch. "Ah, no, you can't turn, stay facing that way!"

Shovel begrudgingly turned around and waited.

"Here we go…" was the only sort of warning Shovel got before something flew into him. Spinning around, he found Rapier holding a bucket half filled with blue paint.

"What did you…?" Shovel tried to look at his back to find out what she had done, but it proved difficult in his new outfit, and he just make himself look like a dog chasing its tail.

"Shovel, have you-whoa," Shield muttered when she returned from her errand. "Uh, how attractive?"

"What, the purple or the blue?" Shovel asked as he continued to try and get a good look at the slowly drying paint.

Shield cracked a grin. "The combination, actually." She looked to Rapier and gestured to Shovel's front half. "You kinda missed a spot."

"I got that." She chucked the rest of the paint at Shovel's front.

"Are you trying to poison me?" Shovel sputtered indignantly upon spitting out some of the paint that flew into his mouth.

"No…" Rapier replied. "It's not like it would matter here anyway."

Shovel angrily ripped off his helmet, gesturing towards his face. "I don't care if it matters here or not, why do I have paint in my eyes?!"

Rapier took a moment to form the perfect reply. "Oops?"

Shovel ripped off his gauntlet and rubbed at his eyes. "It burns…"

"Oh, be a man and suck it up," Shield told him.

"I am not a man!" Shovel yelled truthfully. "I am a boy who has had paint thrown in his face!"

Shield rolled her eyes. "You're being melodramatic."

"All I see is red," Shovel informed her, staring blankly in her general direction.

"Red?" Shield asked, stepping out of his field of vision carefully, as she had now painted her armor a bright crimson.

Shovel shook his head upon hearing her move. "No, it's not because of you. It's the paint. It has harmed my vision. Don't believe me? Get me a Frisbee, let's see who I smash in the face trying to throw it."

"Uh, that doesn't sound like it's a good test," Rapier said.

"That's because it isn't," Shield replied.

Rapier stroked her chin in the most ridiculous way possible. "Do we even have Frisbees here?"

Shovel sighed. "Then give me a buckler."

"Good to see you're learning the names," Shield noted, handing over her new shield.

"I would not recommend that," Rapier told the other girl with a sigh.

Before she could take it back, however, Shovel chucked it, and Shield quickly ducked with a yelp as it came for her head. It sailed over her and smashed into Scary, who was walking in to check on progress. A small 25 appeared over his head with his health bar as he was knocked to the ground.

Shovel blindly looked in the direction of the noise he heard. "I heard a guy scream. Who'd I hit, and which of you did I almost hit?"

Scary snarled. "Me, and Shield."

Shovel stared. "Who's me? There's got to be a hundred of you guys that all sound the exact same."

Muttering something about a braindead child, Scary yelled, "Your leader!" Shovel gasped, appropriately frightened of the consequences of his actions. "Rapier, what the fuck did you do to him?"

"I didn't do anything!" Rapier shouted defensively. "I just threw paint in his face."

This time muttering something about idiots and dumbfucks, Scary shot the girl an exasperated look and approached Shovel, who started to quiver in fear when he heard it. Grabbing the boy's hand, he shoved the boy a Sunny-D, saying, "Drink this and stop doing stupid shit!"

"What you consider stupid, I consider great!" He was met with silence. "That quiet means shut up, doesn't it?"

Scary pat the boy's shoulder. "Hey, look at that, you're finally learning."

Shovel smiled. "Yay." He tried to take a swig of the Sunny-D, but managed to miss his mouth and splash it on his shoulder, washing away the wet paint.

For the third time muttering to himself, this time on why he tries, Scary jerked the bottle to the correct position and prayed out loud that what was left would heal the blindness, if not the idiocy.

Shovel swallowed and waited for several minutes, awkwardly rocking back and forth because Scary was starting at him intently and thusly could not be bothered to chat with anyone. Finally, he blinked, amazed when his sight returned. "I can see…"

"Hallelujah," Scary said, throwing his hands in the air. No one was entirely sure if he was being sarcastic or not. "Okay, is that all you need from Rapier?"

"My paint…" Shovel whimpered as he stared down at his shoulder.

"You can fix it later!" Scary growled through clenched teeth.

"He still doesn't have a weapon," Shield answered for him.

Scary was unimpressed. "And you've been shifting through all this for how long now?"

Shovel frowned and attempted to do some mental math, but couldn't remember and ultimately ended up guessing. "Maybe five days? Or… maybe… no, not six."

"Don't care anymore," Scary announced, grabbing a nearby straight sword and shoving it in the boy's hands. "This is yours, use it or die. Banana has offered to take you two out hunting so you can learn combat. Now go meet him at the front entrance. And… Shield, where's your weapon?"

Shield held up her buckler and greatshield.

"Yeah, I see that." The leader of the Cloaks sighed. "That's not what I was asking for, though."

"This is my weapon," Shield replied confidently.

Scary was apparently done dealing with the nonsense of his new warriors and replied, "Right, well, while the sane part of me wants to argue that is a greatshield, not a greatsword, I'm going to let you figure that out all on your own. Have fucking fun."

As the leader stomped off, Shovel asked, "Wow, what got stuck up his ass this morning?"

A call came from a fair distance away. "I fucking heard that!"

Shovel squeaked and covered his mouth with his hands. Or, more accurately, he attempted to, but forgot he still was holding a straight sword, and accidently rammed the edge into his lips. A small 122 appeared over his head as he dropped the weapon and crouched.

"You can hurt yourself with your own weapon?" Shield asked, the look on her face bordering on amusement as she watched her friend start to cry.

"I didn't think so…" Rapier replied slowly, comically scratching her head in bemusement. "But, then again, he's shown me several times this past few days that truly, anything is possible here. Which is sad, because he's been here for a literal fraction of the time I've spent here."

Shield approached Shovel. "Yeah, I distinctly remember someone calling him smart in the stupidest way possible, and considering this and the fact that he does not deny it, I say it's pretty accurate." She crouched by him. "Bud, you gonna be alright?"

"I hurt," the boy whined.

"It can't be that bad…" Shield lifted his chin so she could look at him and reeled back immediately. "Good gods!"

"We're going to need a lot more Sunny-D," Rapier noted, her expression deadpan as though she anticipated it to be a lot worse.

* * *

What was he going to do?

Tinker paced back and forth.

Should he really be this worried about them? Then again, he was one of the few people to talk to Plague; if he were to lose his best friend…

He started muttering without realizing it. "Who is unaffiliated at this time? Pickaxe, Mona, Black… technically. Striker… again, technically. Oh, right, Dog wouldn't be that hard to tame. Uh, wait, that came out wrong."

"Having fun?" Kard questioned.

Whirling around to look at his teammate, Tinker started blushing in embarrassment. "N-no, I'm not. Help me out here. Who else is there? We need someone."

"You got Plague, didn't you?" Dirk questioned. "It stands to reason you could get Mona in, then."

Tinker shook his head, almost wishing the people around him were mind readers so he didn't have to keep telling them his plan. "That's the thing, I'm trying to keep them together, because that's the only time I see the two of them working at full capacity. Now I need someone else, so either help me or leave!"

To his disappointment, his teammates shrugged and took the second option.

Grumbling to himself, Tinker thought, 'Oh, great, that didn't work at all.'

He pulled out a piece of paper and a pen, scribbling down names to hopefully come up with someone.

* * *

After (somehow) healing Shovel's terrible injuries, the two finally made their way to the entrance.

"That took you guys a long time," Banana pointed out. "The hell were you doing?"

"Well, admittedly, we got a little lost again," Shovel said.

"But it's mostly because this numbnut stabbed himself in the face with his own sword," Shield added, patting her friend on the back to show that she meant no offence.

"…Maybe we need to get you something less inherently deadly," Banana commented. "Like a club."

"Oh, even with gauntlets, he'll give himself a splinter unless it's a steel baseball bat, let's be real here," Shield assured the younger boy. "So, anyway, hunting?"

Snapping back on track, Banana told them, "Right, so, Lazarus has monsters. Like any typical fantasy adventure, see. They actually generally mind their own business, but they have materials we need, so the universal rule is to kill them before they move onto to another group's territory. Once provoked, though, they will fuck you up if you aren't ready for them. So, uh," he glanced down at their weaponry, "you comfortable with that shit?"

Shield nodded while Shovel said, "Scary just kinda shoved this in my hands, so I'm a bit afraid."

"Not even your own choice and you've hurt yourself with it?" Banana sighed. "Uh, that is what's called in my family a 'sign'. See, a sign is when the universe is yelling at you that you're being a nincompoop and you need to stop that nonsense. So honestly, I suggest you stop this nonsense and find something you want to use."

"And I agree, however, if I take the time to experiment, we'll be here for the rest of the week. So, I guess I'll just stick with this nonsense." Shovel swung around the straight sword halfheartedly; utterly unimpressed with the way it sliced through the air.

Banana seemed unimpressed by Shovel being unimpressed. "I actually found a straight sword to be useful starting out. But, uh, if you really don't think it's going to be your style, you are aware you can carry multiple weapons in your inventory, right? So you can just kinda switch out in between battles."

"Oh, right, there's an inventory," both of the newbies muttered at the same time.

Banana let out a laugh that at first sounded amused, but slowly degraded into a befuddled light chuckle. "Wow, you two have been hanging around each other way too much to be able to say the same semi-complicated sentence at the same time."

Shovel and Shield slowly glanced at each other, both saying, "Swear that wasn't intentional."

Banana let out an unconvinced "Uh huh," and left it at that. "I have some extra weapons in my inventory, so unless there's something you really want to try out, we can go."

Shovel thought for a moment before shaking his head. "Nah, I'm good. I just hope you have something worthwhile in there."

"I hope so too, because I have been hoarding these things like there is no tomorrow," Shovel swore he saw Banana avoiding eye contact for a moment as though thoroughly embarrassed by this fact, "and if you don't find _something_ that fits your fighting style then you are a picky motherfucker that I hopes runs away."

Shovel snorted. "Thanks, man, you really know how to make me feel loved."

Banana ushered the two out. "Yeah, well, it's not exactly in my job description, so you know what; it's a free gift, so I hope you appreciate it." At the sound of sarcastic thank yous, he muttered, "We are going to kill each other, aren't we?"

"More like you're going to kill us, but if you honestly think we even somewhat kinda sorta have a chance against you…" Shovel replied.

"Considering we're allowed to revive, that's not even something that he can't do," Shield muttered, somewhat distraught by this idea. "Actually, question, what does it feel like to die?"

Banana slowed his already sluggish pace. He had his helmet on, but they could practically hear his grimace upon thinking of the effects. "Very… nauseating. Puked the first time, actually. Personally, gives me a headache now, and that's considered in the middle of the spectrum."

"Uh… what's the worst that's happened thus far?" Shovel questioned slowly.

Banana seemed uncomfortable for a moment, like the worst effects of death in Lazarus were taboo to talk about. "Uh, one person suffered a mild mental breakdown. He was new, had literally just gotten his respawn crystal, barely knew anything about the world, and then a raid happened, and he got killed in the crossfire, allegedly getting a good view of his entrails before he died. Poor kid didn't even have a weapon yet. Naturally, he was revoked from the game when the trauma landed in him in therapy. Somehow, he managed to keep quiet about Lazarus. Either that or no one believed him. Regardless, everyone knows not to drag him back here."

Shovel and Shield nodded slowly in understanding. They were silent for a moment before Shield managed to ask, "Shouldn't you do mental evaluations before permitting anyone else in here then?"

Banana seemed mildly confused by this. "You know, that's a very good question. But most people become desensitized enough from hunting before they ever get a chance to be in serious danger." He spotted something in the distance. "And speaking of hunting… are you ready to get blood on your hands?"

Shovel and Shield slowly looked to each other. "Um, no," they both said.

Banana looked at them curiously. "Seriously, are you seriously in love or something? Or… you're identical twins and one of you is just trans?"

"Nope," they said. A confused look spread on their faces. "At least, we're pretty sure…"

Banana didn't seem to be convinced, but nodded anyway. "Alright, I'm just going to assume that you're just _really_ good friends, then."

"That's what we've been telling you," they replied.

Banana sighed and shook his head. "Right, sure. Whatever. Come on, hunting time."

"Hunting. Honestly, that scares me," Shovel informed the yellow Spook.

"You'll get used to it," Banana assured immediately. "Alright, so, like I said, these guys hold materials we need, whether it is to sell or consume ourselves. These things are our primary source of income, so do not let a single one go if you can help it. There are only two of them over there, so it should be possible if you gang up on one."

"B-but they look like deer!" Shovel protested.

"I feel like I'm about to hurt wildlife," Shield added.

"Deer are commonly hunted in real life, though," Banana reminded.

"Doesn't make us feel less terrible," Shovel said.

Banana shrugged. "Okay, so on the count of three, we rush 'em. I'll get the right one, you take the left one."

Shovel nearly screamed in fright. "W-wait!"

One finger raised itself, and he swore he heard snickering. "One."

Shovel threw his sword at the boy. "Seriously, I'm not ready!"

Banana grabbed and threw it back gracefully in a slow upward arc, embedding itself at its thrower's feet. "Two."

Shovel ripped the sword out of the ground. "I want to look at your cache of weapons!"

Banana was suddenly gone, only his last pre-fight word hanging in the air. "Three."

"Well, fuck you too," Shield laughed. She grabbed Shovel's hand and dashed forward, shouting, "I'll keep it from running, you stab it in the neck."

"I don't want to hurt it!" Shovel whined.

The deer-thing jerked as it heard them. "You want to get in trouble with Scary?"

The deer-thing dashed to meet them halfway. "No! But-" Shovel let out a frightened scream. "I thought it was going to run away!"

Shield skid to a stop, shoving her friend out of the way of the creature's charge before jumping away herself.

"Okay, can we change the plan a little?" Shovel requested.

"No, I'm still just going to keep it from running!" Shield yelled sarcastically. "Get over here! I'll guard you until you can get close enough to strike!"

Shovel darted over to his friend, missing another charge from the deer-thing. "How are we going to do this, exactly?"

Shield shrugged. "No clue, we're winging this. I'll just get you as close as I can, good?"

Shovel stared at the deer-thing. It was large and snorting indignantly. "Not good, not good, we need a plan!"

"That is the plan, come on!" Shield grabbed her friend and charged to meet the thing head on.

Shovel screamed, but did not abandon her as she rammed her greatshield against the large beast's horns. She was nearly knocked off her feet, but used her armor's weight to her advantage in keeping her grounded.

Shield grunted, struggling to yell out a command as she tried to resist being overpowered. "Kill it! Kill it, you bastard!"

The beast jerked its head, and threw Shield away. Shovel watched her fly at least a hundred feet, and even from so far away, he could hear her landing with an audible thud. He couldn't read the damage she took, but could make out triple digits. He couldn't tell if it was from the fall, or actually damage that transferred through the shield.

He heard the thing's hooves clopping on the ground. Slowly, he turned to look at it, coming face to face with a massive snout.

'Okay, just… stab it. It's not moving, it's just staring, why is it staring? Stab it. Just…'

The beast's head suddenly fell off, Banana having performed an amazing flying slash through the air to cleanly slice it off. How he got high enough in the air with enough speed to perform such an act is best left unexplored.

Quickly, Banana looked to the stunned boy. "Get away from it!"

Shovel barely managed to ask "What?" before the beast's body, instead of turning to dust like the humans and inhabitants of Lazarus, exploded.

Silently.

Somehow.

Or maybe he was thrown away fast enough that the sound didn't manage to reach him.

Unlikely.

Regardless, he was sent flying, and while the landing was painful, it gave under him in a way that the ground should not have.

Shovel didn't dare move for a short while after finally coming to a stop. He was at less than a tenth of his health, and he appropriately ached.

He heard a grunt under him. "Would you get off of me?"

Startled, he scrambled off of whatever was under, only slightly surprised to find it was Shield. To his concern, there was only a tiny piece of her health left.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Are you alright?"

"Not really…" She groaned. "Barely managed to get up in time to save your sorry ass. If I hadn't, I bet you would have flown another 50 feet at least and bashed your head so many times you would have died of brain damage."

Shovel nodded slowly. "Ah, yes, uh… thank you." He offered a hand to his companion.

Groaning, she took it, and was pulled to her feet, only to almost collapse immediately. "Ugh, I don't care about negative side effects; someone kill me now."

"That's basically your only option, with your health as low as it is," Banana informed them. "With as much blunt force trauma you've endured, you'd surely keel over immediately after getting home."

Amazingly, the one to complain this time was Shovel. "I'm about to keel over now! Never mind her, at what I can only assume to be a singular health point. Also, was it necessary to almost kill us when you could have handled both of those things yourself?!"

Banana shook his head. "I didn't think it'd go _that_ wrong for you two."

"You thought wrong!" Shovel screamed.

"Shovel, calm down," Shield sighed. "I hurt as it is, I don't need you murdering my eardrums."

Shovel shuttered in distress. "But… but he said death was painful."

"Nauseating," Banana corrected. "It's only really dangerous if you're not expecting it."

"Honestly, that doesn't make it better," Shield noted. She sighed. "But still… kill me. I sound suicidal, but do it, I'm ready!"

Banana shrugged off her words. "Everyone sounds suicidal here, don't worry about it. Shovel, huddle up now."

Shovel backed away in fear. "What? I don't have any cuts; I don't see why I have to die."

Banana crossed his arms, almost as though he were already annoyed with the difficulty the older boy presented. "Dude, you're gonna bruise like a fruit."

Surprised by the simile, Shovel ended up snorting in laughter before continuing his efforts to avoid death. "Can't I just… drink some Sunny-D and call it good?"

"Uh, I think you've drank enough of that to cause some serious damage to your liver," Shield pointed out.

"…It's not alcohol," Banana pointed out.

"I'm aware," Shield shot back. "But it is a mysterious substance that I'm personally very skeptical about, and am not convinced won't cause problems of various degrees."

Banana hummed in thought for a moment before nodding. "Now that I think about it, I don't think we've ever run tests on the Sunny-D or the watercress for anything dangerous…"

Shield smirked in an odd way that was somehow both her being proud of herself and extremely irritated at how she was the singular person to think about such a thing. "My point exactly."

"It's just a drink," Shovel said. "And… watercress. Why watercress, exactly?"

Banana tilted his head to the side, seemingly confused. "I thought we told you. We don't know."

Shovel shook his head. "No, I don't remember that."

Muttering much like his older brother, Banana grabbed Shovel's wrist and pulled him next to Shield, holding out his scythe behind them, blade facing them. "Prepare to feel nothing."

Shovel opened his mouth to ask just what he meant by feeling nothing when he pulled his scythe towards them, cutting off the heads of the two newbies before they could fully understand what was going on.

* * *

Tinker threw his pen across the room in frustration. There was no one! Griffin was the only worthy candidate, but there was no viable way to keep his mouth shut; he would drag in that damnable Enchantress with him for sure.

Someone asked, "Having trouble?"

Tinker looked up and nearly screamed. It was Treasure, holding the pen with a slightly amused expression.

A nervous laugh escaped Tinker, and he ended up spouting what first came to mind, ignoring the question entirely. "Dog wouldn't be too difficult to keep on a leash, ah, dammit, that sounds wrong. But, uh… If you're willing to put up with Griffin…"

"No," Treasure snarled immediately. "Now, I've given you more time than what I said I would. I'm taking her, Dog, and Pickaxe for my payment. Good day."

Before Tinker could protest, Treasure turned and walked away.

Oh no.

* * *

Treasure inwardly debated upon who he would give to Gold. He had said the last person to join, but he was getting them all at the same time, technically…

Dog was a keeper. He was an indoor lover, but he at least played games of various types, so he wasn't a bad choice at all, while not being smart enough for Gold's tastes.

Mona was smart, but certainly not fit for his level of training. Inevitably, he would have to be in control of her entrances and exits from the start, maybe have to tone down the training to keep her quiet. Threatening her for her silence didn't sound hard at all, though. The hardest part would be dealing with her annoying friend.

Pickaxe was the weakest of them all. Homeschooled, definitely smarter than the average child of their age group, but has the weakest muscle since she has not had to deal with any PE classes.

Yes, definitely her. Has to be. Mona at least attended PE, even if her efforts were reportedly half-hearted at best.

Dog should be home, and it wouldn't be hard to send someone to grab him, and Pickaxe would just be a waiting game to ensure her parents would not notice.

The hardest was Mona. Plague would throw a fit if he learned she was in a different group, and he doubted that the techs would accept any of his numbnuts if he were willing to give anyone up anyway, nor would they give up any of their people with their highly specialized skillset in exchange for someone with little to no potential in their field.

Oh boy, this was going to be annoying. After the pain of getting her, there was no way he was going to send her anywhere.

Now then, time to do some gathering.

* * *

"Are you sure you're feeling better, Plaguey?" Mona cautiously questioned her partner.

Plague nodded, looking up to her gratefully. "Yes. Whatever happened has passed now. I'm fine, I promise."

Mona smiled at him and gently ruffled his hair. "Alright, just tell me if you need a break. I really don't want to see you passed out like that again."

Plague smiled before suddenly collapsing.

Mona rushed to catch him, but felt a sharp pain in her head and crashed to the floor as well.

When she jerked awake, she was slung over the shoulder of someone wearing something metal.

What the hell just happened?

Immediately, she struggled to escape her captor's grasp, not thinking about the consequences of such an action. To her surprise, she was dumped on the ground, but her hand was stepped on before she could scramble away.

She looked up and found herself staring at a diving helmet. Her mouth opened and moved, but her throat did not produce any sound.

The man reached up and removed his helmet, revealing Treasure.

Mona sputtered for a moment before managing to rather meekly ask, "Why did you kidnap me?"

"Because I have use of you," he answered simply. "Don't worry, I won't harm you."

Mona answered with a snarky tone of voice without realizing it. "Oh really? Yeah, that really explains the pain I feel." Suddenly, it occurred to her that her partner was nowhere to be seen. "Where's Plague?"

"Sent him home," the younger teen answered casually. "Put a note on the table explaining he passed out again, but since he turned out fine the last time, you saw no reason to hang around doing nothing for the rest of the day."

"I would never do that," Mona snarled. "You can't copy my handwriting anyway!"

Treasure shrugged uncaringly. "No, but if you cooperate with me, you won't be here long today, so he won't be left worrying for long."

Mona relaxed slightly. Still, she was skeptical. "What do I need to do?"

Treasure smiled as though he expected this to be a lot harder. His foot removed itself from her hand. "Just follow me."

Mona pushed herself to her feet, cautiously doing as told. There were a bunch of people around her, casting glances at her as they moved past. She couldn't see a single face. They were all hidden behind helmets of armor sets that looked like they weighed twice her total body weight.

Eventually, she couldn't help it anymore and asked, "Seriously, where am I?"

"Lazarus." Mona waited for more, expecting some sort of punch line or _something_. But nothing came.

Realizing that she wasn't going to have any explanation handed to her, she pressed, "Okay… can you explain to me what that is, because last I checked it was impossible to go inside an undead mythology character."

A couple people around them laughed.

"Can't say I've heard that one," Treasure noted. "Anyway, you can get a history lesson later. For now…" he pushed open a door and ushered her in. There was nothing present until he snapped, at which point a crystal appeared in the center. "Grab that."

Mona inspected the object. "What is it?"

Treasure thought for a moment before answering. "It allows you to avoid death, in a sense."

"Impossible," Mona retorted immediately. "That is one of the few rules of the universe. Death is inevitable."

Treasure crossed his arms and huffed. "Listen, I'm not saying you won't die eventually. It'll just keep you alive. Now take it."

Mona gazed at the crystal silently for another moment before determining that it would get her nowhere. Slowly, she reached out and grasped the shiny, floating object.

In a split second, it disappeared, reappearing in the center of her chest. Startled, she grabbed at it and ended up pulling out.

Treasure snatched the crystal from her hands. "And there we go. Tomorrow you will get your armor and start training. If you breathe a word of what we are doing here to anyone, I will hurt you in the worst way possible. Every day after school you will have 10 minutes to get to a place where no one is watching, and I will teleport you in. If you take too long or run away, one of my men will be waiting in the wings and come get you. If you do not do as I say, I will start by making you work weekends as well, and if you still don't learn, or if you prove to be that disobedient in two days, I will take away your ability to heal your more severe injuries from training."

Mona felt like she was going to have a panic attack. There was too much information being thrown in her face at once, and it was becoming too hard to process it all and understand it.

She heard Treasure sigh and say something. When she didn't respond, he snapped in her face and repeated. "Do you understand?" She nodded numbly in response and he rolled his eyes, clearly not believing that to be the case. He glanced down to the crystal in his hands, fiddled with it for a second before looking up to her and said, "Remember, not a word to anyone."

Suddenly, she was back somewhere familiar. Right in front of her house. She looked around, unable to fully comprehend what just happened to her.

She remembered Plague and dashed to his house, putting the last couple of minutes behind her in favor of ensuring he was alright.

She found that, no, the note left for him did not look anything like what she would write, and the reasoning was terrible. She shoved it in her pocket and hoped he hadn't gotten up yet. She rushed to his room and found him staring at the ceiling.

"What happened?" He asked upon noticing her presence.

"I'm not sure," she lied. It was only a partial lie, actually. She knew what had happened to him, but she sure as hell didn't understand what had happened to her. "Are you alright?"

Her partner grunted, but forced himself to sit up. "Debatable."

Mona pushed him back down. "Then get some sleep. You don't think you have a concussion, do you?" He shook his head. "Then rest. I don't want to see any more harm come to you. Maybe you should just take tomorrow off. I'll pay attention, just for you, alright?

Plague curled up on his side. "Okay. Thank you."

Mona patted him on the head. "Just don't pass out on me again. I'll stay here for the rest of the day if you need me."

At her partner's nod, she left him to sleep, all the while hoping that she'd wake up at any moment and discover that the last hour had been nothing but a nightmare.

* * *

(Friday) (Day 10) (Day 2)

"Mona was taking notes today," Shield noted at lunch.

"No way," Shovel laughed. "Are pigs flying now?"

Shield picked up her school pizza, took a bite out of it, remembered why that was a bad idea, and set it down again. "We haven't known her that long. Maybe there's some special reasoning? I'm not really sure. Plague wasn't there, though."

Shovel hummed in thought. "Maybe she knew he'd be gone, so she's getting what he needs."

Shield shrugged and moved on. "Maybe. So, you think we can get excused from going back _there_ today? Because I'm still reeling from that death. Not throw-up levels like yesterday, but I'm not looking forward to it."

"We can ask Wimpy during PE," Shovel suggested, looking down at his food and suddenly not feeling all that hungry as he was reminded of the nauseating feeling of a Lazarus death. He wrapped up his remains and stored it away, chatting idly with his friend for the rest of the lunch period.

* * *

"You died?" Wimpy asked.

"I'm surprised Banana didn't mention it," Shovel muttered. "We both ended up with only a tiny bit of health left, so he ended up killing us. We've both haven't felt very good today."

Wimpy raised an eyebrow. "Why haven't you just stayed home?"

"Because we weren't feeling that shitty," Shield answered. "Now can we please not go today?"

Wimpy laughed gently. "Sure. I'll deal with Scary. Ah, this brings back memories. My first death left me sobbing in a corner for a couple hours. My mother would have sent me to therapy if I wasn't prone to random hour long outbursts at the time. Chibi and Cutie let me hug them for the last hour until I fell asleep because I was one of the first to die, so they didn't know how common the symptoms were."

Shovel grimaced. "Oh, that sounds… bad."

Wimpy smiled. "Thanks for the concern. I'm fine, though, now. Anyway, I would recommend you talk to the teacher about not doing anything today. I doubt it will help you any."

Shield laughed. "Oh, it probably won't. Thank you, Wimpy."

* * *

Someone behind Mona whispered in her ear, and she nearly backhanded them. "I trust you remember what you need to do later?"

Mona slowly turned to look at the person. It was Xiphos. Great, she never liked this guy. "So you're the one that's going to make sure I do what Treasure wants?"

Xiphos seemed rather uncaring about it as he muttered, "Yep. Now, don't take too long, there's a big hunt I need to do, and I won't like missing part of it because of your slow ass."

Mona glared at the boy. "Who gave you permission to lord over me?"

Xiphos leaned forward, a grin appearing on his face. "Treasure, who else?"

Mona clicked her tongue. "Fine. When will I be getting back?"

Xiphos ducked under a flying ball. "How rude," he noted before returning his attention back to his new charge. "That's for Treasure to decide. Newbies generally aren't allowed out for a while until they can get done whatever he wants of them."

Mona groaned. No matter how she looked at it, there wasn't any way to do anything about this. She couldn't even confide in her best friend because he couldn't possibly know about this other place because she had only just now found out about its existence and he was almost always with her for the past couple years.

Eventually, she muttered, "Alright."

Xiphos pat her shoulder and dodged another ball. He growled and stomped away, muttering, "Okay, seriously, where's the asshole?"

* * *

 **Jason, dear: Yeah, I kinda figured, that's why I rolled with it.**

 **One: Dude, you're the one who got me to write again. You could at least put an exclamation mark.**

 **Two: Uh, I can't draw faces, is the problem. Well, actually, the problem is that I don't think of them as legit faces, which makes it really strange and kinda nice to go click on a video of something like Mona dancing and being reminded of what her face actually looks like. Plus, I like making the first draft on my phone because it's easier, and that thing has the stupidest small canvas size, so I couldn't even fit two people side by side together, and a lot of things look fugly. Also, I was kinda halfass mapping out the person under the armor for Shovel, and... his head must be fucking tiny! Like, geez, holy mother of god, are you kidding me? It might be the halfassery I was doing it with, but eep.**

 **Three: Then we are actually talking about the same person, yeah. I can accept them not like PoS, although it really confuses me that they've never finished it, so, what, you just stop before landing the final hit on the final boss and fuck off or something? The hell? But, you know, whatever, ship who you want. But they just aren't helping calm down the issue between the two sides of the shippers, in fact, I'd argue they're aggravating the issue by doing things that seem to be deliberately aimed at pissing the PlaguexMona shippers off. Someone said to stop posting Nerd Knights? Hey, let's, instead of ignoring them or telling them to leave them the fuck alone, no, just post a shit ton more, that'll fucking sever the problem at the root won't it?**

 **As for the quotations, I don't think you use too many, however... the grammar nut in me has to point out it's actually correct in all but two places. I argue you didn't need them around "really" (I would recommend asterisks because that's what some text formatting systems use to cause words to be italicized), and around "magical power" you should have used apostrophes given that it was not a direct quote because you said "or something" afterwards. SASKS, they, she, mademoiselle, and miss are all correct, though, because they are a name, things I said, and things Lkc said. I generally use apostrophes because of ease, though. Also, why are you asking? That really came out of left field.**

 **And four (Are you ready for this, you'd better be): Alright, I'll jump right to the big thing of this section. Lkc's gender ambiguity. Here's the thing. 'They' were a 'she', but now 'they' go by 'he'. Alright? Simple. He says he's fine being called mademoiselle, though, because the french is appealing. And yeah, sorry, but I had to take this up with him, because it was hard dancing around it until he gave me permission to talk about it, because this is a very sensitive issue for him. But yeah. Aren't comfortable with it? Essentially he says 'don't talk to me again, I don't need your transphobic shit.'  
I'm sorry if this is the case. Even if it's not, do not to get in his face about it, alright? I won't forgive you if you do. I may be your friend, but I'm loyal to him first, you second, so don't do anything that will make him want to cry. If you need to ask him about it, be gentle.**


	6. I'm delaying C6

Yo!

First thing, chapters 6 and 7 are effectively done. The reason this is not them will be explained shortly. I promise you, though, it's going to be... well, interesting at the least. Long, too, each hit 9000 words and count with each change I make to them the more I worry about portraying it approximately right.

So, the reason for this is I went back and re-read the first chapter of our dearest Hanburger and I realized something... the first chapter has a couple of inconsistencies and other weird things (after I spent so long trying to keep 6 & 7 written properly before I posted them, too...), so I think I'm going to delay getting out those two until I can work out the weird kinks like what the time period is and why I mentioned healers in the start of chapter 2 despite not mentioning them later, and why would you leave your healers at your base anyway when you go to wage war against someone? That, how battle damage works (IE. bleeding damage), being able to see a character's max health on their healthbar, respawning at specific points after death, and some more that I probably haven't stumbled upon yet.

I don't know why I'm so concerned with the internal logic of this series. It's meant to be terribly nonsensical, hello, look at the premise! But it's a thing that I am indeed concerned about, despite telling Lkc that I'm probably going to leave it and chalk it up to pilot episode shenanigans if anyone asks. I've been going back and forth on it since that conversation. So I've decided that I need to go out and fix all of that first and foremost. Not a lot of people read this, so it's best to keep it as amazing as possible for the few that do, right? Maybe I'll take the time to cut out some of my rambling on my A/Ns while I'm at it... I'm just being a perfectionist, aren't I?

* * *

Also, Jason, dear: No, you aren't an idiot. As long as you can think of Lkc as Lkc and not someone else... I mean, dude, for the most part, he is nothing but a name to you and me, it's basically just a pronoun change you have to worry about. You needing to rethink your life (if you haven't already, haha, look at the numbnut who can't be bothered to post anything on a timely basis!) would only be necessary if you seriously can't accept him for being who he is. Alright? Good.

Self observation. Huh, alright, I guess. Interesting thing to self-observate.

So, basically you make semi-complicated stick people?

I do indeed have a Facebook, although, A) I haven't used it since I first got it besides unfriending this one guy I kinda sorta half-ass dated for a while who kept liking things my sister or my mother would post and it kinda got a little creepy because I hadn't talked to him in about a year. And B) are _you_ willing to give up your first and last name to the general public? Because I sure as fuck am not trusting FF's user base with anything past my nickname and maybe if you really cozied up to me, my first name. Even if this story is not exactly read a lot and I could remove the information as soon as you confirmed you'd got it. Potentially, you could give it in a review separate from the one that I would need to read several times to get all the meaning out of, and I would remove it as soon as I got your name copied down. I don't know, thoughts? I plan on posting another story on Cheats soon enough, so we can get this settled soon... Just ramble and provide as much info as you can, because you're only getting one more reply from me for a while until I can correct everything I think is wrong with Hanburger.


End file.
